Nine Other AC/DC Aussie Landmarks We Could Still Honour

Australia lost the chance to commemorate #4 Burleigh Street in Sydney's inner west suburb of Burwood with a music tourism plaque. The Young family home was where The Easybeats’ George and AC/DC’s Malcolm and Angus grew up.

As reported this month, the house was demolished by its developer owner, Burwood Square Pty Ltd, who bought it in February 2023 for $5.8 million as part of plans for a $28.75 million residential development.

Here are nine other AC/DC Australian landmarks that could be recognised for their role in the rise and rise of one of the greatest bands from Australia.

CHEQUERS CLUB, SYDNEY

79 Goulburn St, Sydney

Current status: now Roma Sauna and Spa Centre

One-time theatre cabaret club, which paid top dollar for names such as Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr, Dusty Springfield and Dionne Warwick, had in the early ‘70s become a rock club under Entertainment Manager Gene Pierson.

AC/DC made their live debut here on December 31, 1973. The lineup included Malcolm Young, vocalist Dave Evans, bassist Larry Van Kriedt, drummer Colin Burgess, and 15-year-old Angus, who joined last when his band Kentuckee broke up.

The stage was tiny, and bands had to change in the kitchen or side of the stage. The vibe on the night was already up because it was NYE, but more so because of this new band’s Easybeats connection, and Burgess had been with The Masters Apprentices.

Driven by Malcolm’s determination that Sydney needed a hard-hitting rock band (no pop harmonies, no glam), they kicked off with a version of Irish band Them’s Please Don’t Go and hooked the crowd instantly.

They followed up with originals like Malcolm’s The Old Bay Road and covers by Free (Wishing Well), The Beatles (Get Back, I Want You (She's So Heavy), The Rolling Stones (Can You Hear Me Knockin’), Little Richard (Lucille) and Chuck Berry (School Days).

They didn’t have a name yet (that would come a week later), and Angus hadn’t adopted his schoolboy uniform. Like the others, he sported jeans and a T-shirt.

There were two problems. One, they were expected to do two sets, and they didn’t have enough songs. Evans said, “So to get enough songs, Malcolm said he’d start up a riff, I would announce a name for it, and then we’d make it up as we went along.” 

Secondly, the old Greek gentleman who ran Chequers thought they were too loud and kept unplugging the sound. Roadie Ray Arnold and original manager Alan Kissack would turn it back on. Twenty minutes later, things would be unplugged!

Despite this, the live debut went down a storm with the 550-strong crowd, and Pierson immediately got them a week’s show, including one at the Bondi Lifesaver and a return to Chequers. The Seedies were on their way.

KIRK GALLERY CHURCH

422-424 Cleveland St, Surry Hills

Current Status: offices and restaurant

The one-time Methodist Church was where the Let There Be Rock was filmed in July 1977. Bon Scott was dressed as a priest, and the others (including the newly arrived bassist Cliff Williams) as altar boys. Angus sported a halo prop on his head.

The video effectively used the stained glass windows. Scott broke his ankle leaping from the pulpit. The church was later bought by Sydney dominatrix Madame Lash for her well known clients.

ASHFIELD BOYS HIGH SCHOOL

117 Liverpool Road, Ashfield,

Current Status: unchanged

This government school in inner west Sydney was where Malcolm and Angus attended without leaving much of an academic ka-pow.

Mal scuppered off at 15 to become a sewing machine mechanic in a bra factory, and Angus also departed at 15 to work in a printing shop. 

The school is important because its uniform is what Angus adopted in 1974. This is after he tried a gorilla suit, Zorro mask and Superman suit. 

Angus explained, “The first time I saw Jimi Hendrix, he just blew me away with what he wore; I wanted to be that cool.”

Others who attended Ashfield High were rugby players Keaon Koloamatangi, Salesi Ma'afu and Allan Alaalatoa; NSW cricket captain Dirk Wellham; ironman world champion Craig Alexander; Daniel Neurath; and Graeme Innes AM – Commissioner responsible for disability discrimination for the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission.

CANNING HIGHWAY, WA

Fremantle To Victoria Park

Current Status: Same

Canning Highway connects Fremantle and the Perth suburb of Victoria Park. It’s 17 km (11 mile) long. But to focus on its importance to AC/DC history, it would be the steep descent leading into an intersection near Raffles Hotel. There were so many crashes there that the locals nicknamed it Highway To Hell.

This was where Bon would ride his bike from his home in Fremantle to his favourite drinking holes, The Raffles and The Leopold.

The lines capture the thrill of the ride: "Ain't nothing I would rather do. Going down, party time, my friends are gonna be there too" … "No stop signs... speed limits... nobody gonna slow me down” …“I'm going down/ All the way.”

On March 1, 2020, to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Scott’s February 19, 1980 death, 10 semi-trailers moved slowly along the highway carrying bands banging out AC/DC songs.

WAVERLY CEMETERY

St. Thomas Street, Bronte

Current Status: Unchanged

Malcolm Young is buried here in Plot W-12-RC-SP-0829, with the inscription “Born Glasgow, Scotland”. His death at 64 on November 18, 2017, was from a three-year battle with dementia. 

His funeral at St Mary's Cathedral in Sydney brought together current and ex-members of AC/DC, such as Brian Johnson, Cliff Williams, and Phil Rudd, and began the move to their return to the band.

MELBOURNE SHARE HOUSE

6 Lansdowne Road, St. Kilda East

Current Status: house demolished to make way for apartment building

In 1974, AC/DC signed with a new manager, Michael Browning, based in Melbourne. Browning had managed Doug Parkinson and Billy Thorpe and was looking for a band that could take on the world. He found it in AC/DC and their new singer, Bon Scott, who joined in September.

He moved them down to Melbourne, put them on $60 a week, banned them from taking public transport or wearing watches (the latter because real stars were not tied to time) and started booking them into the Hard Rock Café (corner of Flinders and Spring Street in the CBD) which he co-owned and served as a booker.

AC/DC played a residency there, the first time on October 16 at the club’s gay night, where Bon continually cracked a whip over the audience and Angus mooned them.

Browning installed the band and its two roadies at 6 Lansdowne Street in St. Kilda, a large, sprawling, furnished place not too far from the red light area.

It developed a reputation as a 24-hour party pad, and Mojo magazine called it "the vilest den of depravity".

Browning recalled in his memoirs Dog Eat Dog:  “The house turned out to be ideal for the band, a great place to write and rehearse new material. 

“But as well as having a practical purpose, it fast became the ‘do-drop-in’ for every single wayward groupie, out-of-town muso and off-duty St Kilda hooker. They all joined in the action that was happening there on an almost daily basis.”

Their female companions inspired songs such as The Jack (originally titled The Clap), Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap, Girls Got Rhythm, Livewire (about Bon’s penis) and Whole Lotta Rosie.

There were visits from parents chasing their runaway daughters. One time, an enraged father dragged Bon through the neglected rose garden and broke his two front teeth.

Malcolm would later say the Lonsdale Road days were among “his happiest… and craziest”. Browning responded: “He didn’t have to pay for the damages” or hose down threatened lawsuits from parents.

Browning, who moved them out of the house when it looked like they were getting evicted, maintained that their stay in Melbourne whipped them into a band, and they’d never have lasted otherwise.

FREMANTLE CEMETERY

Carrington St, Leach Hwy, Palmyra

Current Status: Unchanged

After Bon Scott’s death in London, the family brought his 33-year-old body back to Fremantle. His ashes are buried in Ground Niche, Frontage Garden, Site N3, Position 10 of the 46-hectare (110-acre) Fremantle Cemetery.

There’s a resting plaque and a memorial bench seat. On what would have been his 60th birthday (February 15, 2006), it was given a heritage listing by the National Trust of Australia for cultural significance. 

On the same day, a memorial gate was erected near the corner of Leach Highway and Carrington Street. In 2024, the memorial gate was found and reinstalled.

Bon’s resting place still draws thousands a year, a testament to his growing popularity. The 2004 Australian movie Thunderstruck was about a group of fans journeying across the country to visit his resting place.

In 2025, HALO Films and Protocol Pictures will start shooting the movie The Kid From Harvest Road, inspired by Scott’s magnetism and early days, with Lee Tiger Halley (Boy Swallows Universe) playing the young Bon.

FIRST REHEARSAL SPACE

1 Erskinville Road, Newtown

Status: Modernised

A space on the first floor of a block of offices (empty because it was being renovated) on the corner of Erskineville Road and Wilson Street in Newtown in Sydney was where the first version of AC/DC tested out their chemistry.

At the time, it was Malcolm (guitar), Larry Van Kriedt (bass) and Colin Burgess. They rehearsed consistently, with Malcolm insistent they be tight by the time they started gigging.

Dave Evans met them at this rehearsal room after replying to their ad in the Sydney Morning Herald for a singer with “the style of Free and The Rolling Stones”.

The phone number on the ad was Malcolm’s. On their first call, they discovered a link. Both had been in Sydney band Velvet Underground, but not at the same time.

On a warm spring day in 1973, the four jammed on covers they knew, many of which Velvet Underground had played. 

By the sixth song, as Classic Rock reported, Malcolm said, “Well, I’m happy if you guys are.” The others agreed. Evans recalled, “We shook hands, and that was it. That night, we all went out to celebrate that we had a band.”

At the next rehearsal, Malcolm asked the others if his younger brother could come and audition. The others were puzzled because they considered Malcolm a really good lead guitarist. But they agreed.

Evans: “I actually had met Angus before, he’d knocked on my door some years before and asked me to join his band Kentuckee. I turned him down.

“When he auditioned for AC/DC, Angus knew all the songs. Malcolm asked, ‘Can he join?’ and we all went, ‘Yep!”

Angus: “I walked through the door, and there was a drummer, and Malcolm goes, “All right, let’s start!” And I’m going, “Wait, isn’t somebody supposed to count us in?” He says, “What? This is a rock band. Go!” And so that was how it started.”

MELBOURNE CITY SQUARE

#11 Swanston Street, Melbourne

Current Status: Demolished To Make Way For new Town Hall Rail Station

On Monday, February 23, 1976, AC/DC and Countdown producer Paul Drane shot the video for It’s A Long Way To The Top (If You Wanna Rock’n’Roll). 

The three-camera shoot saw the band play on the back of an old Bedford flatbed truck, chugging along Melbourne’s main thoroughfare, Swanston Street, between Bourke and Flinders Streets. Footage was also shot at City Square at tram stop #11.

AC/DC and Countdown had a strong relationship, especially a year before when they appeared with Scott dressed up as a schoolgirl.

When it came to shooting a video for the show for It’s A Long Way, the show was willing to cooperate. Scott asked if the bagpipes could be featured. For Drane, bagpipes conveyed the idea of Melbourne’s four-day Moomba festival.

One of its highlights was the parade and floats down Swanston Street, watched by 100,000 people.

"The thing is, you could do something like that back then," Drane said. "You could organise it with the city council, and it could be done very quickly. We didn't have to shut the streets down or stop traffic. These days, you'd have the street shut down for a day. It would be almost impossible."

The clip, which cost $360 to make, aired on Episode #53 of Countdown on March 26. No one expected it to be so iconic, going on to generate 40 million YouTube views.

It juxtapositioned a high-energy performance from a rock band led by a cheeky larrikin with bemused looks from lunchtime bystanders.

For the shoot, Scott brought in three members of The Rats Of Tobruk Pipe band — Alan Butterworth, Les Kenfield and Kevin Conlon. 

Noticing they were nervous before filming began, he took them to the pub for a quick round of drinks. Afterwards, the band shouted them lunch. The pipers ended up in Bon’s hotel room, where the four joyfully performed Scottish folk songs.