♫ It's 50 years ago this month that one of the world's most successful rock bands was formed in Australia.
Do you know which one? I'm sure you've heard of them...
It's heavy metal band AC/DC!
🎸 Formed by the Angus brothers in Sydney, most of the band's members were not born in Australia but in Scotland and England, having emigrated to Australia with their families as 'Ten Pound Poms' – part of Australia's Assisted Migration Passage Scheme that allowed for British Subjects (the "right" type of people for "white Australia") to emigrate to Australia for 10 pounds (terms and conditions applied). Most of Australia's legendary rockers and pop singers are or descend from Ten Pound Poms. Jimmy Barnes is one, and so too Olivia Newton-John, John Farnham, the Bee Gees, and the parents of Kylie Minogue and Hugh Jackman. Actually, quite a few Scots claim AC/DC as a "Scottish band", which is not true as only three of band's members were born in Scotland.
⚡ AC/DC is known popularly and affectionately as 'Acca Dacca' in Australia. It's essentially a play on pronouncing the electrical term as a word, though some suggest it's to take away from the term's other slang connotation – bisexuality.
🛣️ The road that inspired the title for one of the band's most emblematic songs, Highway to Hell, came from the nickname for the Canning Highway that connects central Perth to its port at Fremantle, once notorious for the number of car accidents on it. In March 2020, the Canning Highway was transformed into a 10 km stage for the Highway to Hell Festival featuring many bands covering AC/DC hits.
🧢 Lead guitarist Angus Young’s schoolboy costume is one of the most iconic looks in rock music. It was his older sister Margaret who suggested the outfit, after Young had already experimented with gorilla, Zorro and Superman costumes. Margaret made her brother’s costumes in the early years of the band, and even gave the group their name after noting the famous initials on the AC adaptor of her sewing machine.
💥 AC/DC concerts in the 80s in Australia often had to be cut short due to rioting. The 1988 Adelaide riot is still the stuff of legend.
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Any Acca Dacca fans out there?
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