Album, concert and book unearth history of SA rock band Fraternity, led by Bon Scott before AC/DC
Fraternity, with AC/DC’s Bon Scott out front, are unsung heroes of the 1970s SA rock scene, but a new box set, book and concert are about to change that.
Entertainment
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It’s 1972 and Bon Scott, lead singer of Fraternity and future frontman of AC/DC, is perched atop a shark-weighing tower ten metres above the sparkling waters of Port Lincoln’s Boston Bay.
The sea below is thick with jellyfish, and most people have called a halt to the day’s swimming.
Not Bon though. The charismatic rocker cracks one of his trademark cheeky grins before performing a perfect swan dive from the tower into the heart of the stingers.
Then, while his bandmates are still wondering if they’ll have to find a last-minute replacement for that night’s show at the Civic Hall, Scott swims underwater to a nearby ramp and emerges completely unstung and ready to play.
It’s a classic tale of a classic band, a band of no-nonsense rock and rollers whose contribution to South Australia’s musical history is often overlooked, or at least overshadowed by the weighty presence of their long-departed lead singer. But not for much longer.
A three-disc box set featuring Fraternity’s two studio albums – 1971’s Livestock and 1972’s Flaming Galah – and a live disc featuring performances including the aforementioned Port Lincoln show will bring all of Fraternity’s music together in one place for the first time.
The January release will also see the albums released on vinyl, the publishing of an authorised biography and a gala concert featuring surviving members of the band and who’s who of seventies Oz rock. It’s all been driven by Adelaide’s consummate vintage rock aficionado and head of the Grape Organisation Victor Marshall, whose tireless work has helped keep the musical memories of yesteryear alive.
For Marshall, Fraternity were something of an enigma. “Growing up, my friends and I would talk about the fact that members of Fraternity could walk past you in Rundle Mall and you wouldn’t even know,” Marshall says. “They were so mysterious.”
Marshall says people had been bootlegging the two Fraternity records for decades – with varying levels of sound quality – but the box set would feature remastered recordings taken from the original tapes.
He says the band went through many style changes in its relatively short existence. “They started off doing something like a King Crimson-inspired prog rock, then they were more inspired by The Band – they even did Band covers – and then later on they moved more into the hard rock, J. Geils Band-ZZ Top type of sound,” Marshall says.
“On the box set you’ll hear a wide range of genres that they’ve experimented with. They were also one of the first bands to play with a symphony orchestra.”
Marshall says his goal was to help ensure that Fraternity – whose line-up also included Jimmy Barnes and brother John Swann in its later years – were not forgotten by history. “It’s a lost part of Adelaide – and Australian – music history and my goal was to have the other band members step out from behind the shadow of Bon and have their own story told,” he says.
“They contributed a significant amount to Australian music.”
The band, Marshall says, was also famous for engineering impossibly loud sound systems from its share house in the Hills town of Aldgate.
It’s a house that has, over the years, been described as a hippie commune but Marshall rejects this assertion.
“I actually think they would have eaten the hippies for breakfast,” he says.
“They were the toughest band in Australia.”
The Fraternity CD box set and vinyl release is slated for January, with Marshall’s book on the band slated for a March release.
An anniversary concert celebrating Fraternity’s 50-year anniversary will take place at Thebarton Theatre on March 19, with Spectrum, Chain, Doug Parkinson and the Zep Boys’ Vince Contarino fronting surviving members of the band. Tickets go on sale soon.