Australia has long been a country shaped by its arrivals and, as this BBC4 documentary set out to show, so it was with rock music. Using the twin journeys of the Albert family from Switzerland and the Youngs from Scotland, it went on to map out the particular path that would eventually lead AC/DC on to global domination. The Youngs, you see, included guitarists Angus, Malcolm and George.
The pairing of these opposites – the refined Alberts from Switzerland, who set up a music company that had been established for more than a generation by the time rough and ready Youngs arrived from Glasgow – felt a little forced. Particularly when the vastly more interesting relationship was the songwriting partnership between George Young and recent Dutch arrival Harry Vanda. Following the demise of their beat group, the Easybeats, they would go on to define not only the sound of Albert Music’s output in Australia, but also MOR disco everywhere with John Paul Young (imagine a Bluecoat Bolan who’d been attacked with badly broken hair straighteners). They were also to make a sizeable dent in dance culture with their Flash and the Pan project, releasing tracks including “Waiting for a Train”, which still sound fresh and vital today. They were nothing if not versatile.
As AC/DC spread their wings, they found that the world opened its arms
Harry Vanda spoke animatedly of his career with an enthusiasm that was hugely engaging and gave some indication of how his and Young’s partnership endured. It appears that they simply loved what they did. In fact, it was incredibly refreshing to listen to the key players of a significant movement in popular music reflect on events and have nothing but positive words to say about each other. There seems to have been an incredible amount of ego-free bonhomie.
Having shown interest in the fledgling efforts of George’s younger siblings, Malcolm and Angus, even Ted Albert, the visionary who had pulled the family business into the rock era, couldn’t have predicted quite what would happen next. An admirable lack of pretension married to incredible ability saw AC/DC win over rock fans across the country and, eventually, the world. Refusal to stray from simple, memorable riffs, despite the chops to play pretty much whatever they wanted, cemented their reputation as the no-nonsense, heads-down rockers of choice. As they spread their wings, they found that the world opened its arms.
Throughout, the archive footage and talking heads (including particularly measured and good-humoured take on events from Angus Young) gave a real sense of purpose to the storytelling, which was, like the music, uncomplicated, easy, yet incredibly satisfying. That’s not to say that there weren’t niggles. There are always niggles.
The title was a little misleading. This was a very narrow path, well-defined, but without any wider viewpoint. While it was good to see Angry Anderson in the context of his band, Rose Tattoo, and divorced from the awful power ballad that soundtracked Scott and Charlene's Neighbours wedding, there was no mention of the Bee Gees’ early soft psych, or of interesting also-rans such as Zoot. Understandable, given the time constraints, but the omission of Lobby Loyde, one-time member of Billy Thorpe and the Aztecs, whose heavy blues psychedelia predates AC/DC, was a real shame. He warrants a documentary himself. Any takers?
It also stopped short, abruptly, along – sadly – with the life of Ted Albert himself. It felt like leaving a tale half told. Although Ted’s death clearly marked the end of an era, the AC/DC story still had more life in it, not least those who followed in their considerable wake. Still, best to leave the crowd wanting more I suppose.
Those criticisms aside, it provided us with an engaging and absorbing look at how immigrants can help to shape a society’s culture, given the encouragement to do so. In a time of polarised opinion and rampant ignorance on the subject of border control, that’s a very welcome reminder.
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