Revered rock drummer Buzz Bidstrup shares how that infamous Angels chant began

News.com.au

18 hours ago

It was the night that scarred the members of Aussie rock band The Angels for life, and changed New Year's Eve concerts in Australia forever.
In his memoir No Secrets, original Angels drummer Buzz Bidstrup shares the horrific violence the band faced when they took the stage in front of the Sydney Opera House to usher in 1980.
Back then, the New Year's Eve concerts were free. There were no onsite bars or portaloos and minimal security.
Up to 100,000 revellers with eskies of slabs of beer and champagne crowded the forecourt and foreshore throughout the day. By the time The Angels took the stage just after midnight, cans and bottles were flying at their heads and smashing against the scaffolding, showering the band members in glass shrapnel.
Bass player Chris Bailey was knocked unconscious when a bottle hit him in the head and then frontman Doc Neeson was felled by a piece of Masonite which sliced the back of his neck.
From that night on, the New Year's Eve concert dumped rock acts as headliners in favour of a family-friendly program.
Bidstrup said the band copped the blame from the government of the day for the 'war zone,' despite Neeson and Bailey being rushed to hospital and the authorities failing to make it a safe event.
'That night ruined Chris's life. We should have sued the council for that,' Bidstrup said.
'We looked out from backstage and saw all of these people and somebody told us they'd been there all day, there were no toilets, there was piss and shit everywhere, bottles and cans everywhere because people were bringing Eskies full of booze.
'We kind of thought, we'll be all right, they're not going to do anything to us because they were there to see us.
'And nobody tried to stop them. The police were there and could have seen who was throwing stuff, surely.
'After that night, every time I'd be playing and anything would come up on stage, I'd just get up and walk off.'
Bidstrup's memoir details the hardscrabble early years of The Angels when they desperately tried to conquer overseas markets to match their success at home and the internal frictions which led him to leave the band and continue to this day.
They broke into the charts in 1976 with debut single Am I Ever Gonna See Your Face Again, a song still so beloved here it was voted into No. 12 on the recent Triple J poll of the Hottest 100 Australian Songs.
The song remains famous for its fan-led chant of 'No way, get f...ed, f...off!'. There remains some confusion as to when that quintessentially Aussie call and response began a feature of the band's gigs in the early 1980s.
Bidstrup he believed the chant developed during an eight-week residency at the Mooloolaba Hotel on the Sunshine Coast in 1983 by Bailey's side project The Invisible Men, who also performed Face after their own song No Way.
Neeson told Bidstrup the first time he heard it was at an Angels gig in Mount Isa the same year by which time both Bidstrup and Bailey had left the band.
'Doc told me they got two encores that night and figured they were going to have to play Face and they hadn't played it for years because it was kind of a pop single and felt a bit daggy,' Bidstrup said.
'Doc does his thing where he ran out the back door, came back through the front and into the middle of the crowd, and is singing the first chorus and a thousand people turn around and yell 'No way, get f...ed, f... off' and he wasn't sure whether they were telling him to f... off, whether they didn't like the song, or didn't like the band for playing the song!'
Bidstrup's book reveals how many different musical and other lives he's had. He formed GANGgajang with Mark Callaghan and Bailey who gave us the evergreen Sound of Then (This is Australia). It's a travesty that didn't make the Hottest 100 or even Hottest 200.
A self-taught producer and engineer, he's worked on songs by everyone from the Hoodoo Gurus and Australian Crawl to Tiny Tim and recorded with and played in Jimmy Barnes' band in the 90s.
Bidstrup introduced Barnes to his wife Jane in Canberra in 1979, and with his wife Kay, took the bride to meet her groom at the Sydney registry office for their civil ceremony in 1981.
He also managed the treasured Indigenous singer Jimmy Little during the last chapter of his career, and continues to run the artist's Thumbs Up! initiative in Indigenous communities which spotlights healthy food options.