The Angels’ Chris Bailey Has Died

Legendary Australian rock group The Angels have today confirmed the passing on bassist Chris Bailey who was diagnosed with cancer earlier in the year.

The band said Bailey, who played on six Angels albums including their most recent, Take It To The Streets, would be “deeply missed”.

Bailey's career began while he was at the Prince Alfred College in Adelaide, when he met singer, guitarist and activist Rob Tillett in 1964. By 1968, the pair were at university and formed agit-rock band Red Angel Panic, which regularly performed at anti-Vietnam War rallies and released an indie single, Viet Rock, in 1971. Bailey then joined a prog rock band called Headband, which won the SA finals of Hoadley's Battle of the Bands in 1972, before relocating to Sydney, scored a two-album deal, released one album and a hit single in Adelaide titled Land Of Supercars, before folding in 1974.

Through the following year, he hosted an alternative music and arts show called Solid Air on ABC TV. When The Angels started to take off with their May 1976 single, Am I Ever Going To See Your Face Again, the decision was made to relieve Doc Neeson of bass playing duties to concentrate on being the vocalist. Bailey was brought in and remaining with the band through five albums – 1977's eponymous debut, 1978's Face To Face, 1979's No Exit, 1980's Dark Room and 1981's Night Attack – before visa issues that prevented his joining the band in the US prompted his departure.

In 1982, he rejoined Tillett and fellow Angels escapee, drummer Buzz Bidstrup, in another Adelaide band called Gotham City, which cut one album, Radioactive, before fading out. Bailey and Bidstrup joined ex-Riptides frontman Mark Callaghan, now head of Music Sales, in GANGgajang in 1984. That band cut four studio albums, their most recent 2002's Oceans And Deserts, the various members also pursuing various individual projects between recordings and tours that included massive concert stages in Brazil.

Bailey and Bidstrup rejoined what was billed The Original Angels Band in 2003 when the Brewster brothers were invited to play a fundraising concert in Perth for the victims of the Bali bombings. Bailey remained with the band to record last year's Take It To The Streets before the aggressive cancer that finally killed him – he'd won a battle with cancer of the larynx some years before – forced him to step down. John Brewster's son Sam had taken up the bass position in their version of The Angels.

Earlier this year a tribute concert for Bailey was announced to take place in Adelaide later this month. It features a line-up of Jimmy Barnes, The Angels, Diesel, Ian Moss, James Reyne, GANGgajang (of which Bailey was a founding member) and others.

Tickets are available here.

Bailey playing with The Angels last year.

Late last year the band's original frontman Doc Neeson was hospitalised with a brain tumour.

The band are currently on tour with their new album.

Additional reporting by Michael Smith