22-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Glasgow Times
The global superstar rock band with roots in Glasgow tenement
However, it might come as a surprise to learn global superstars AC/DC's roots stretch all the way back to a street in Glasgow's East End.
Brothers Malcolm and Angus Young, who formed the Australian rock band in Sydney in 1973, spent their early childhood in a tenement flat on Skerryvore Road in Cranhill, and they attended Milncroft Primary.
(Image: Newsquest)
The Youngs emigrated to Australia when Angus was eight years old and Malcolm was 10, on the 'ten-pound-pom-ticket' scheme, which saw thousands of Scottish families take up the offer of a new life Down Under.
In 2023, calls for a memorial to the band in Glasgow followed the decision by the The Royal Australian Mint to commission a series of commemorative coins to mark the 50th anniversary of the group.
Fiona Bennie, exhibition manager of the Melbourne Arts Centre, with Angus Young's guitar. (Image: Newsquest)
(There is already a statue to former AC/DC frontman Bon Scott in his native Kirriemuir in Angus, where a regular music festival, BonFest, also pays tribute to the singer.)
AC/DC's first live album. If You Want Blood You've Got It, was recorded at the band's 1978 concert in legendary Glasgow music venue The Apollo.
READ NEXT: 'I'll always be part of the Shakey': Glasgow youth club icon retires after 30 years
READ NEXT: Stunning bungalow near Glasgow in running for Scotland's Home of the Year
The concert is hailed as being one of the best of their career. The band dressed in Scotland football strips for the encore.
In 2011, an exhibition celebrating the band took place at Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum.
(Image: Newsquest)
More than 10,000 people visited the venue (and anyone who turned up wearing a school uniform like Angus's stage persona was not charged the £2 entry fee.)
Around 450 items were on display, including a leather jacket owned by Bon Scott, and handwritten lyrics from Highway To Hell, which appeared on the 1979 album of the same name.
There were also copies of immigration papers signed when the Young and Scott families arrived in Australia, a prototype version of Angus's schoolboy outfit and one of his custom-made guitars.
It was the first time the band-approved show had left Australia and Kelvingrove was its only European date.
