AC/DC Exposed
Before they sold their 200 millionth album, AC/DC were a Sydney band on a long way to the top. Riding shotgun was Philip Morris, whose newly unearthed photos capture a red-hot band on the up and the first flickers of a Bon fire...
Lavender Bay 1975... "Bon wore pink satin overalls and an extra pair of soxks down his strides that day"
For a young snapper on the make, AC/DC were a dream. "They were pretty quiet boys back then," Philip Morris recalls, "but on stage and on camera, they came alive."
In 1974, Morris was shooting Scene Around for Go-Set magazine when he landed a job shooting a young Burwood band playing Chequers nightclub on Pitt and Goulburn streets, a once classy cabaret venue that had hosted the likes of Shirley Bassey but which had now gone to seed... and to be more precise on this night, to AC/DC.
"Most of the bands I shot in that mid-70s era were pretty serious,' Morris told Time Out, "but AC/DC were dynamic and never deadpan - they jumped around, reacting off each other. Angus Young was a livewire, scuttling around on his knees, spinning on the floor, spraying sweat around. And Bon was a born showman, always animated, endlessly cheeky, incredibly charismatic."
Indeed, Morris - better than anyone - bottled lightning by capturing the band's energy on film and all over Sydney.
At the forefront of these frames is Bon Scott, the pocket rocket frontman turned Sultan of Swig and high voltage virility machine. As Harry Vanda, ex-Easybeat and the co-producer of AC/DC's firtst seven records recalled: "Bon always seemed to have mischief on his mind and it's written all over his face in Phil's photos. Believe me, he really did live and breathe and believe every word he wrote in AC/DC's songs"
Sneak a peek at some of Philip Morris's work in our preview
AC/DC Exposed is at Blender Gallery from June 26-July 29 (02 9380 7080)