bronze statue – Bon Scott Blog

Bon Finds a Home at Last

While the world goes nuts over accadacca’s new album, in Fremantle, some quieter developments long overdue…

These pix were sent to me by Gabby and Darcy, courtesy of Greg James, the sculptor who made the bronze statue of Bon in Fremantle.

[The photos are by “Genm152”, whose handiwork can also be seen here: flickr.com/photos/fun4me/]

Finally, it seems that the statue has found a home at the fishing boat harbour. And by the looks of the photo above, it was worth waiting for Greg to finish the custom Marshal amp which is Bon’s pedestal. It looks amazing!

Here’s Bon being craned out of the ute on site:

bon crane ute fremantle

Here he is being forklifted into position:

bon forklift

And finally, the proud sculptor with his work:

bon with greg

Apparently, there was a ceremony yesterday to celebrate the final placement. Thanks to the kind anonymous soul who sent me through some photos and movies live from the event. Unfortunately, my mobile phone is so old, it struggles to read those big files.

Any chance of emailing through those pictures to me? lucas[at]bonscottblog[dot]com

update: (29 Oct 2008)

Andre from the Fremantle Arts Centre went along to the unveiling ceremony for the pedestal-and-statue. He said it was a surprisingly modest affair, considering the potential volume of Bon’s fan base. There has been a change of government in Western Australia, and the minister in charge of this bit of land, Alana McTiernan, is no longer in power. Apparently she was a big AC/DC enthusiast, and one imagines that her successor has different tastes. Anyway, the Mayor, Peter Tagliaferri, presided over the ceremony. Does anyone else who was there have anything to add to this brief account??

Andre took the following photos on the day (thanks to Jasmin for emailing them through). [By the way, you can click on these images to see them a bit bigger…]

Big Bon Issue

big issue article on bon

The Big Issue has run a cover story on Bon Scott! You can read it page by page over here, or look at the pdf version here [2.5mb].

It includes coverage of the Bon Scott Project (including this blog!) by West Australian art writer Ric Spencer, and a personal story of his journey to see the bronze statue of Bon, by Melbourne rock journo Patrick Donovan. The cover art (shown above) is from the public artwork by Bevan Honey – the ghostly apparition of Bon which appeared mysteriously under a bridge in Fremantle in May this year.

(The Big Issue is a great magazine sold by homeless folks on the streets of cities around Australia. A large proportion of the cover price goes to the vendor.)

Greasy Bon

bon in cicerello's

Hi Lucas,
Here’s one for the blog….. This beautiful sculpture of a beautiful man……. in a fish and chip shop!!!!! I urge all Bon Scott fans to protest or go and carry him out of there on their backs.
Yes we are pretty sad!
Cheers Gabx

So Bon’s Bronze Statue, after all the hoo-har about his final resting place, has actually wound up INSIDE the Cicerello’s fish and chip shop!!?? Wow, that’s news to me.

Originally, the idea was to have the bronzy Bon in pride of place in Fremantle town centre, near all the bronze prime ministers and important men. But that was poo-pooed by the local heritage lobby (or so the tale goes). Bon was an inappropriate figure to have in such a location (and besides, who knows what kind of undesirables he would attract to the streets…)

Then the state minister and acca dacca fan, Alanah McTiernan, stepped in, and offered the sliver of land on the water side of the railway tracks as a site for our little metal man. Because the state government controls this land, this solution would sidestep the machinations of the troublesome naysayers in local council.

If you want to read more about this history of Bon Scott ping pong, have a look at a few posts I wrote when I was in Western Australia. Here they are:
The Fine Details
21 Characters, 4 Lines

That was the last I had heard of the matter, until the email above came through from one of Bon’s oldest friends Gaby. I think Gaby must have found out through Crabsody in Blue (the mega Bon Scott tribute site), who, in turn, must have located the news on the website for Cicerellos (the fish and chip shop).

Admittedly, it’s a huge win for Cicerellos. Bon will really buffer their current “curiosity shoppe” which consists of a big canoe that was bitten in half by a shark, and a fishtank full of lobsters. Definitely giving them the edge over their chippy competitors.

But it’s a sad fall from grace, considering the two huge Bon Scott Celebration concerts that raised all the money for the statue to be built.

So what gives, Freo??

21 characters, 4 lines…

lcd sign

Yesterday Jasmin and I went down to visit John Longley from the Fremantle Chamber of Commerce. He’s kindly agreed to let us use the Freo red LCD sign. As you drive into Fremantle, over “the old bridge”, you inevitably sit at the traffic lights for an aeon and stare at this electronic billboard. It says things like

DONT DROP
LITTER
IN
FREMANTLE

QE2 SHIP IN PORT
WED 5TH MARCH
LAST CHANCE AT
PASSENGER TERMINAL

OUTDOOR FILMS
TONIGHT AT FILM AND
TELEVISION INSTITUTE
STARTING 7:30 PM

or (my favourite)

FAREWELL TO CITY OF
FREMANTLE CEO, RAY
GLICKMAN. TODAY
IS HIS LAST DAY.

Continue reading “21 characters, 4 lines…”

The Fine Details

bon and me
[The author clutches Bon’s knee and wonders what will become of him…]

Everyone, it seems, wants to know exactly where the bronze sculpture of Bon Scott will end up.

Forgive me if I’ve got some of the following details wrong. I’m sure it’ll all come out in the wash.

On Wednesday Simmo came to pick me up in his cream Kingswood station wagon, for another look at the statue. We drove the two blocks over to Greg’s studio, where we took some great closeup photos of Bon’s face and shoelaces and buttons and veins.

There was a definite sense of relief in the workshop. Greg was out, but one of his assistants, Alastair, told us about the week leading up to the big unveiling. Greg had been extremely anxious about the statue. More than any of the other dead-white-males he’s sculpted in bronze, the Bon Scott statue would have the eyes of a million experts scrutinising it for defects. The team put the finishing touches on the statue at midnight on Thursday. Greg looked crestfallen. “I’ve fluffed it,” he said. “I don’t know why, but it’s just not quite right.” But being made of bronze, it was too late to change anything.
Continue reading “The Fine Details”

Bon Scott Statue Finally Unveiled!

scottish lads with their tattoos
[Kev, Andy and Ian from Fife, Scotland, with their commemorative tattoos…]

It was a huge day. Great to meet and mosh with so many fans.

I’ve uploaded my photos from the concert here. Please send in your own photos, or links to your videos on youtube, or your reports on the day!

Just leave a comment below or email me at lucas[at]bonscott.blog) and I’ll post your stuff up here!

In the meantime, I’ll be slaving over my keyboard to tell you about my version of events! Stay tuned…
Cheers
Lucas

World Exclusive! The Bon Scott Statue in Progress!

greg with bon moulds
[Greg, the sculptor, with the moulds he used in the casting of the Bon Scott Bronze Statue…]

Following the advice of Simmo, a guy I met at Bon’s grave on Tuesday, Jasmin and I snuck around to Greg the sculptor’s studio to check out the progress on Bon’s bronze effigy. We stumbled upon a bustle of activity, with several assistants busily grinding, welding, and polishing various bits of the statue.
Continue reading “World Exclusive! The Bon Scott Statue in Progress!”

Beginning the Bon Scott Blog

I’m starting a new project. It’s all about Bon Scott, the singer from AC/DC. He died in 1980. During the first half of this year there will be a Bon Scott Project in Fremantle, Western Australia. That’s where he spent much of his childhood, and that’s where he’s buried. Apparently his is the most visited grave in the Freo cemetary. A bunch of fans have gotten together to raise the money to have a bronze statue of Bon made up. The statue will be unveiled on February 24th at a memorial concert. (Perhaps unsurprisingly, rumour has it that not all his fans think a bronze statue is the best way to memorialise their hero.*)

I have been commissioned by the Fremantle Arts Centre to write a blog about all of this. I’ll be travelling to WA in February for the statue unveiling and concert, and again in April/May when there will be further festivities and an exhibition by visual artists responding to Bon’s life and work. My mission, hazy as it is right now, is to interact with “the fans”, whoever they might be.

I’ve been asked to do this project based on my previous blogging projects, Bilateral Kellerberrin, and The Sham. In those projects, I spent an extended period of time blogging about a small country town in WA, and my own home suburb in Sydney. In this new project, I will need to get my head around a different kind of “site” – no longer geographically specific, but a site which revolves around a community of people who are dispersed throughout the world, and who hold in common their enthusiasm for Bon Scott.

I have to disclose from the beginning: I am not a fan. I certainly don’t dislike the music of AC/DC, but it’s just never crossed my horizon in any significant way, and I’ve never gone out of my way to listen to it. The earlier work of Bon Scott, before he joined AC/DC – well, I know nothing about it at all. So the Bon Scott Blog will certainly be, at least at the beginning, my autobiographical account of “coming to know Bon Scott”. I hope that some of the fans will take me under their wing and show me the “Tao of Bon”.

My first task is to get to Fremantle for the concert and statue unveiling on the 24th of February. I’m looking for an ardent fan as a travelling companion to drive with me across the nullabor from Sydney to Perth. The candidate would need to have a working car with a good stereo, and maybe some camping gear. I will pay for the petrol. Please contact me at shortleftleg[at]yahoo[dot]com to register your interest. (I guess we’d need to leave at least 5 days in advance…)

—

*but I can’t remember where I heard this rumour. Searching around the net, looking at the enthusiastic sites maintained by fanclubs, I haven’t seen anything critical of the idea yet. Maybe I just dreamed it.