AC/DC Love at First Feel by Premium Publishing

ANDERS HEDMAN MATS LARSSON

THIS IS THE UNBELIEVABLE STORY OF WHEN A RAW, DIRTY AND EXPLOSIVE BAND FROM AUSTRALIA VISITED AN UNEXPECTING SWEDEN FOR THE FIRST TIME! IN JULY 1976, AC/DC’S DID THEIR FIRST SWEDISH TOUR.

Being relatively unknown, the band was booked in some very unlikely venues for a blistering hard rock band. Thrown in between dance bands in countryside dance halls as well as gigging by the motorcycle Grand Prix, these shows make up A FASCINATING AND COLOURFUL PART OF THE BAND’S EARLY HISTORY.

Through dozens of interviews with the audience, promoters, dance band musicians as well as Mark Evans, the five gig tour is recreated, bringing you never before heard stories of shocked audiences, mesmerized teenagers and A BAND READY TO CONQUER THE WORLD, no matter how weird the gig.

BONUS! This first edition contains A UNIQUE 12-PHOTO KIT

featuring Angus in Stockholm by photographer Hans Hatwig. The photos from this session are the only ones known to be taken during the tour.

PREMIUM PUBLISHING Warfvinges Väg 34 Box 30 184 SE-104 25 Stockholm Sweden Phone: +46 8 545 689 20 E-mail: info@premiumpublishing.com www.premiumpublishing.com LOVE AT FIRST FEEL – The legendary AC/DC tour of Sweden in 1976 by Anders Hedman & Mats Larsson ISBN: 978-91-89136-90-8 Executive producer: Wille Wendt Design & Layout: Anders Wieslander Front cover photo: Hans Hatwig Scannng & repro: Roger Holegård Printed in EU by Bulls Graphics, Halmstad, Sweden Paper: MultiArt silk 130 gr First edition: © MMXV Premium Publishing – a div. of Internal AB This first edition contains an exclusive bonus: a set of 12 photos – “Angus Young In Stockholm, July 1976” – see page 200 for details. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any other form or by any means, electronic, digital, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright holder.

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AC/DC LOVE AT FIRST FEEL The Legendary AC/DC tour of Sweden in 1976 ANDERS HEDMAN | MATS LARSSON

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CONTENTS

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FOREWORD BY NISSE HELLBERG

INTRODUCTION

CORTINA IN VINBERG 16TH JULY

NYCKELHÅLET IN HÖLLVIKEN 17 TH JULY

GLÄDJEHUSET IN STOCKHOLM 21ST JULY

102

BARBARELLA IN VÄXJÖ 23RD JULY

130

TT GRAND PRIX AT ANDERSTORP RACEWAY 24TH JULY

154

AFTERWORD

184

BUILDING UP THE INFO ABOUT THE 1976 TOUR

188

THE PHOTO KIT

200

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INTRODUCTION

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n mid July 1976, AC/DC had been in Europe for three and a half months since they left Australia. The band had from the start consciously aimed at being big all over the world and the first step after having achieved success in their home land was to conquer Europe. This required that AC/DC moved to London and on 1st April the band flew from Sydney to their new British base. There they had to start all over again. The first gig on European soil was at the tiny Red Cow pub in the Hammersmith area on the 23rd April. The show was enough to start spreading the bandâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s name on a street level and build up an audience despite the strong punk scene that was going on at the time. AC/DCâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s raw and uncompromising music instead led to the band sometimes being seen as a punk band. Thereafter AC/DC did smaller tours in England, first as a support act to Crawler in May and in June and July as headliners of the Lock Up Your Daughters Tour. The latter was a consequence of the gigs AC/DC had played at the legendary rock club the Marquee on Wardour Street in London, that led to a tour of England, Scotland and Wales sponsored by Sounds music magazine. The poster for the tour had previously been used in Australia and would also be used for the coming tour of Sweden in July. Unlike Australia, AC/DC would mainly attract a male audience in England. The reason was to a large part the lack of TV exposure the band got compared to Australia. Back home AC/ DC had regularly been featured on the national Countdown show which made them teen rock idols. In England the audience became fans regardless of AC/DCs celebrity level, but instead due to their live show. After having finished the Lock Up Your Daughters tour on 19

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LOV E AT FIRS T FE E L

“

SO THERE IS A CONNECTION BETWEEN ABBA AND AC/DC – QUITE DIFFERENT TYPES OF BANDS MARK EVANS, AC/DC 1975-1977

the 7th July in London and after making their first European TV performance on the Rollin’ Bolan show the 13th, an opportunity to go to Sweden came up. The circumstances that led to this are as contrasting as the tour itself would prove to be. It was ABBA’s tour manager Thomas Johansson of EMA Telstar who provided the offer. Mark Evans continues: “One of the reasons that we went there was at the time the Australian musician union was very strong and ABBA wanted to go to that country. The union then required that an Australian band went to Sweden in exchange. So ABBA played in Australia and AC/DC in Sweden! So there is a connection between ABBA and AC/DC- quite different types of bands.” ABBA then needed an exchange band in order to get working permits for Australia. Through a friend Thomas Johansson heard of a hard rock band from that continent that was building up a reputation in London. He got in contact with AC/DC’s manager Michael Browning but the band didn’t have enough money to finance a tour of Sweden. Johansson therefore chipped in 20

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I N TRODUCTI ON

and booked a five gig tour that would constitute the band’s first visit to the country. Apparently it was hard for EMA Telstar to find AC/DC bookings with the group being largely unknown. There were only a handful of other alternatives to the big places in major cities. It was therefore easier to have the band playing at dance band venues where AC/DC was placed as entertainment during breaks. The Swedish dance band music is a category of its own. It’s very slick music with superficial lyrics aimed at couples doing the fox trot and other dances. In the 70’s these bands sported very creative stage costumes that looked like a mix between Superman and Tom Jones in his Las Vegas period. Over the years the dance band music has changed very little. To pair AC/DC with these dance bands in 1976 probably created the biggest contrast imaginable. Johansson proceeded to arrange gigs at two countryside dance halls, in Vinberg and Höllviken on the 16th and 17th as a start of the tour. Thereafter the complete opposite awaited in the form of shows at regular rock clubs such as Glädjehuset in Stockholm on the 21st and at Barbarella in Växjö on the 23rd. The finishing gig would be at the raceway in Anderstorp during a world championship the 24rd. Michael Browning has reflected on the tour in his memoirs from 2014: “While I’m sure no band in their right mind would attempt to do it today, to me this adventure we were on was just the way it was. It really was a case of putting one foot in front of the other- and going for it, even if it meant playing gigs in Malmö and Växjö or Anderstorp.”

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THE TOUR ITINERARY FROM 1976.

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The legendary tour of Sweden in 1976 16th July Cortina in Vinberg 17th July Nyckelhålet in Höllviken 21st July Glädjehuset in Stockholm 23rd July Barbarella Disco in Växjö 24th July TT Grand Prix at Anderstorp Raceway

Stockholm Anderstorp Vinberg Höllviken

Växjö

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LOV E AT FIRS T FE E L MRS ELSY NILSSON WHO LIVED NEXT DOOR TO NYCKELHÅLET IN 1973 WHEN SHE COMPLAINED ABOUT THE NOISE AT THE VENUE IN THE LOCAL PAPER.

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LOVE AT FI RST FEEL

“

AC/DC WERE PLAYING ROCK’N’ROLL LIKE HELL AND EVERYONE JUST WAITED FOR THEM TO STOP FOLKE ACKEMA, AUDIENCE MEMBER

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LOV E AT FIRS T FE E L

THE END OF NYCKELHÅLET The summer arrangements at Nyckelhålet ended in the late 1970’s and thereafter the dance hall was only used for school parties. The gig later became a local legend that seemed unbelievable during the 1980’s when you saw the closed up and decaying wooden building. It seemed like the dance hall never quite recovered from the AC/DC’s explosion there in 1976. Ten years later it burned down after a school party, as if the building eventually couldn’t handle the energy that had been unleashed there. AC/DC would make other visits to Skåne with Bon Scott. In the spring of 1977 they played Olympen in Lund with Black Sabbath and during fall also Malmö Folk Park with local rocker Kal P Dal as support act. As a matter of fact, Skåne is the one province in Sweden where AC/DC has played maximum amounts of towns. None of these gigs though could ever compare with the contrast, the small scale and the intimacy of the show at Nyckelhålet. THE REPORTER’S TALE Mats Hansson was a reporter in his late teens and the only one to interview AC/DC and review a gig during the tour. After having worked as a sport journalist at the paper Skånska Dagbladet for a while, the opportunity came up to also write about music. A tip from the arranger at Nyckelhålet resulted in a unique interview after AC/DC’s gig, as well as a signed LP. Hansson, who is now writing about sport for the local paper in Hudiksvall, was not aware until 2009 how special his interview is. Mats Hansson: “I was 18 years old and worked extra at Skånska Dagbladet during my journalist education. I was ready to 94

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NYCKE L HÅLET I N HÖLLVI KEN 17 TH JULY

take the world by storm with my new driver’s license and my Volvo Amazon. For nearly two years I had been driving around on a moped to sport arenas in Skåne to write about football, hockey and other stuff for the paper. They now offered me to write some pop and rock to broaden my horizon, which I thought was fun. I did all the articles about Nyckelhålet on my own responsibility. The venue was a really good place where you could meet lots of celebrities. It was impressing that Nyckelhålet could attract well-known acts and meeting them was huge for me.” “AC/DC came up between big acts like Harpo and Pugh Rogefeldt. I asked arranger John Bengtsson which artists were coming next so he read me the summer and autumn programme. He then mentioned that an Australian band were playing next Saturday and wondered if I wanted to come and see them. I had nothing better to do so I went. I always had a photographer with me but not for an unknown band from Australia, which I deeply regret today. It was very simple in those days, there were no tour managers standing in your way. The bands played and you knocked on the dressing room door afterwards.” “AC/DC’s music was very much unlike anything at the time, they didn’t sound like Harpo so to speak. They were good and fun to be watching. I could never dream though that they would become so big. They weren’t a band with hits but a live band. No one probably went there for AC/DC’s sake, the audience wasn’t a hard rock crowd”. “The owner went and got them for me after the gig and suddenly we were standing by a bar table together. We shook hands politely and introduced ourselves. They were very nice and easy to talk to and thought it was fun to be featured in a Swedish paper. Bon Scott did most of the talking. I hadn’t done any work 95

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LOV E AT FIRS T FE E L

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NYCKE LHÅLET I N HÖLLVI KEN 17 TH JULY

with English artists before. I hadn’t prepared any questions so they were all standards.” “After the interview Bon said he had a great tip for me. He said ‘We played in a Swedish town where there was only one store you could get whisky!’ He was referring to the state-controlled company for buying alcohol. They asked me to send them some copies of the paper and said ‘We won’t understand it but it’s fun that someone’s writing about us’. So I sent 5 or 6 copies of Skånska Dagbladet to their UK address and got a signed album in return.” “When I left Nyckelhålet that night I thought it was the first and last time I would hear about the band. The article was published next Monday. I think the band gave me the photo that was used in it. I’m not particularly proud of my writing style back then.” “It’s a real fun thing nowadays. It’s amazing how easy and prestigeless talking with the band was, a band you wouldn’t even get near today. It would be really fun to meet them again and see if they remember the interview. I didn’t know that I was the only journalist who interviewed the band during the tour until 2009! It feels pretty cool”.

LEFT: MATS HANSSON IN 2009 WITH THE SIGNED HIGH VOLTAGE LP HE RECEIVED FROM THE BAND. IN THE UPPER LEFT CORNER BON’S AUTOGRAPH WITH THE WORDS ” THANKS MAT- HOPE WE’RE ALL SAYING SVERIGE SOON! BELOW MARK’S AUTOGRAPH: TO MAT- SEE YOU SOON, MATE. UPPER RIGHT CORNER MALCOLM’S AUTOGRAPH: THANKS PAL. BELOW IS ANGUS SAYING: TO MAT- THANKS. LOWER LEFT CORNER IS PHIL’S AUTOGRAPH: VERY BEST WISHES MAL (SIC). PHOTO: MATS LARSSON.

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LOV E AT FIRS T FE E L

THE PHOTOGRAPHER’S STORY The chief editor and part time photographer for the pin up pop magazine Poster, Hans Hatwig, went around in Stockholm shooting pictures of Angus one very sunny summer day during the band’s stay in the capitol city. We should be grateful for that, since there are no other known pictures taken of any member of AC/DC from this tour. Hatwig tells us more: “I can’t remember how I first heard about AC/DC, but I liked them immediately – they were absolutely fantastic, I thought. What I found most fascinating was their representation which was primary, humorous and ironic while they made this raw kind of music which at the same time was melodic. I probably read about them in some German magazine, checked out some import record, and I felt we’d have to do something with this. After that first article we started to cover them, and we covered them quite intensively in the following years. When a new band was happening, I used to send my text editors out to do the interviews. And then I got a report whether it was a good band and if they were worth doing something more about. Sometimes I read the Bravo magazine, because the Germans used to find out about new things before Sweden did. After awhile though, it became the other way around, because I was really on the look out for new bands, and found many bands before they had their breakthrough in Germany. I can’t remember how I got permission to shoot AC/DC, but I probably contacted their management through the record company. I always used to do like that, phone the record company and ask them to put me in contact with management. But the record companies weren’t always helpful. In those cases I 122

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GLÄ D JEHUSET I N STOCKHOLM 21 ST JULY

“

EVENTUALLY WE GOT THROWN OUT OF THE SHOP had to go my own ways to get in contact with the management and arrange to meet the bands. In AC/DC’s case I might have spoken with Hasse who worked at (promotors) Ema-Telstar or someone else there, I can’t remember their names. However I got to take pictures. Since I always used to take the bands to typically Swedish places I did so with Angus. I didn’t meet the whole band then, I only met Angus who was a really funny guy. There were no problems whatsoever shooting Angus. I said ’Let’s take a walk down to the sex shops in the Klara quarters’. When I entered with a camera the shop owner wondered what we were doing. Angus had no inhibitions! On the back of the storefront there was a little hatch and he opened it. I went out on the street and took pictures of when he hung out of that hatch among dildoes and porn mags and stuff like that. Eventually we got thrown out of the shop. Then we went to the market square Hötorget and among the fruit stands he posed like a little guy stealing apples. After that we went to Sergels Torg, a big square in the city centre and I asked him to pose in front of that big spurt of water from the fountain. It became quite a funny picture, it looks like he’s peeing a giant spurt. Then I believe we went to the shopping street Drottninggatan. They were building things there and he posed in front of a big advert for a crime novel on the boarding. 125

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THE PHOTO KIT (included in this first editon only)

200

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THE PHOTO KI T

1. This shot was taken on Klara Norra Kyrkogata (The Klara North Church Street) in the central Norrmalm part. The street was infamous for its porn shops and cinemas. Angus is standing in front of a poster for the American sex film The Private Afternoons of Pamela Mann that got the Swedish title Naken, Het och Lättsinnig (Nude, Hot and Easy to get). The poster also advertises a Laurel and Hardy film as an interesting bonus. 2. Do you know what it takes to get three women into the same telephone booth? Just tell them Angus offers some dirty deeds if they call the number 36 24 36. 3, 4. The photos in the escalator and by the Durex condom machine were taken down in the Stockholm metro. The brand still exists but the machines have disappeared. It is obvious that the photos as well as the ones from the sex cinema were taken in the liberal 1970’s. 5. The shot of Angus being a naughty schoolboy was taken at the big market square Hötorget. According to Hatwig, Angus really stole the apples in true bad boy fashion! The Concert House is also located on the square where AC/DC would headline a year later in September when they were touring the Let there be rock album. 6. Angus need for a soft drink took him to the Clock hamburger restaurant on Hötorget. There he got a milkshake for 2.50 Swedish kronor according to the embarrassed girls’ register. Angus seems excited about the fact that another cap wearing person appears in the shot. The drink obviously lasted long since it features in photos from other locations as well. 201

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ANDERS HEDMAN MATS LARSSON

THIS IS THE UNBELIEVABLE STORY OF WHEN A RAW, DIRTY AND EXPLOSIVE BAND FROM AUSTRALIA VISITED AN UNEXPECTING SWEDEN FOR THE FIRST TIME! IN JULY 1976, AC/DC’S DID THEIR FIRST SWEDISH TOUR.

BONUS! This first edition contains A UNIQUE 12-PHOTO KIT

featuring Angus in Stockholm by photographer Hans Hatwig. The photos from this session are the only ones known to be taken during the tour.