The day bagpipers stormed Fed Square ... with a little help from AC/DC

AC/DC’s first Australian tour in a decade – and who knows, possibly their last – was a genuine cultural moment for Melbourne.

There were the two big nights at the MCG in November, in which Angus Young proved beyond all doubt that a 70-year-old schoolboy is still one of the very best shredders in the business. There was a spin-off free gig at Federation Square for support act Amyl and the Sniffers, which ought to have been a victory lap for the all-conquering hometown heroes, fresh off a Grammy nomination. But, instead, it made headlines for all the wrong reasons when hundreds of people rushed the fences, sparking fears of a crowd crush, and the gig was cancelled before the band could take the stage.

Still, they managed to enhance their local legend status by donating their fee for the show to pay for drinks at seven rock’n’roll friendly pubs around town.

A couple of days before that, though, Federation Square (in collaboration with the ABC and City of Melbourne) successfully staged one of the more spectacular and heartwarming events of the year, as hundreds of bagpipers played along to It’s a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock’n’Roll).

They were attempting to set a new world record for a massed performance on one of music’s most, er, divisive instruments. The previous record was 333 players, set in Sofia, Bulgaria, in 2012. Organisers claim they had 374 players at Federation Square, and a new record was duly set.

Thousands more watched on as the pipers – representing a vast range of age, gender and ethnicities, but most wearing the kilts, waistcoats, white shirts and ties of their associated bands – played in unison (mostly) the bagpipe sections of the song.

A more Melbourne moment you would struggle to find.

Brothers Angus and Malcolm Young founded AC/DC in Sydney, and recorded the song there in December 1975, but Long Way will forever be associated with our city. For starters, the band had relocated here in 1974, with former Fremantle rocker Bon Scott now on lead vocals. They lived in a share house at 6 Lansdowne Road, St Kilda East, along with a couple of their roadies, and the place became notorious as a wild party hangout.

Most indelibly, in April 1976 they performed Long Way on the back of a flatbed truck as they travelled down Swanston Street for a film clip (a second version was shot with them performing in City Square).

The clip was shot for Countdown, at the urging of Molly Meldrum. The idea to have them performing on the back of a truck came from director Paul Drane.

“Bagpipes to me says Moomba,” Drane said to Channel 9 news a few years back, explaining his inspiration. “What do you do in Moomba? You put people on the back of a truck.”

The whole thing reportedly cost about $300 to shoot, but the exposure – for the band, for the city, and arguably for bagpiping … well, that’s been priceless.

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