Bon Scott ‘Highway To Hell’ tribute draws 150,000 fans
40 years after his death, and AC/DC’s Bon Scott still has drawing power.
As 10 News reports, 150,000 fans lined a 10k stretch of WA’s Canning Highway on Sunday (March 1) as acts on a convoy of eight flatbed trucks blasted out AC/DC songs.
There were 1,000 musicians in all, and a further 1,000 volunteers and staffers.
The Highway To Hell event was to mark the finale of 67th Perth Festival, which covered 230 free and ticketed events across theatre, music, dance, opera, film, visual arts and literature and hit its box office target of $5.5 million.
It was to mark the 40th anniversary of Scott’s death in London, on February 19, 1980.
“Highway to Hell has been a resounding international success, attracting Bon Scott devotees from across the globe and tapping into that little bit of Bon in all of us,” says festival director Iain Grandage.
“This crazy idea was turned into amazing reality with the immense backing of the state government, local councils and other supporters.”
Pic by Jessica Wyld
Canning Highway plays a major role in the AC/DC story.
In the ‘70s, Scott spent a lot of time on the highway, riding n his motorbike between his home base Fremantle and Perth where he’d go drinking with his mates at the Raffles Hotel.
The road dangerously dips into a steep decline around a hill just before Perth, taking out many riders and drivers, and was affectionately called the highway to hell by locals.
Years later Scott wrote a song about that road, with lines as “Goin’ down, party time/My friends are gonna be there too, yeah” and “No stop signs, speed limit/ Nobody’s gonna slow me down.”
On Sunday WA premier Mark McGowan struck a 300kg bell to set off the truck convoy of eight flat-bed trucks.
They stopped at nine spots where aside from the music, there were 130 community events.
They included End of Fashion (stepping in for Dan Sultan), Amyl and The Sniffers, Dom Mariani and The Tommyhawks, Pigram Brothers, MoJu, members of Perth Symphony Orchestra, WAAPA Gospel Choir, Abbe May and The Southern River Band, Carla Geneve and the Floors, The Western Australia Police Pipe Band and Shonen Knife who flew in from Japan for the occasion.
The 150,000-strong multi-generational crowd exceeded the organisers’ expectations: they were forecasting 100,000 the day before.
Most sported the regulation black T-shirt or the red devil horns.
Perth now holds the World Record for the Biggest Air Guitar Ensemble; beating the previous record of 2377 with 3722 people shredding the air at Tompkins Park.
There was also some hope of setting a new world record by putting all eight trucks together to try to break the record for the world’s longest stage.
Grandage summed up: “This is a city that celebrates like few others.
“The happiness on Canning Highway during Highway to Hell was unmistakable, unmissable.
“This was our city, our story, our Bon Scott, and the music helped us dance into the sunset.”
Scott had the last word in another AC/DC song: “Hell Ain’t a Bad Place to Be”.