Sail On Doc Neeson
Posted: June 4, 2014 4:10 am
I lost a hero today.
Bernard "Doc" Neeson frontman of the seminal Aussie rock group "The Angels" passed away today after a 17 month battle with a brain tumour.
Most of you will not have heard of Doc, but please indulge me.
I grew up in the 70's and 80's in Sydney. In those days Sydney had a massive live band culture and Australia developed a sub-genre of hard honest "pub rock". AC/DC, The Divinyls, Midnight Oil are possibly some of the acts that you may have heard about, these guys and girls honed their craft in the crucible of playing night after night in pubs to drunks.
Even when we were underage it didn't stop us from being part of the Sydney Pub Rock scene. It led me to a 30+ year part time career wearing black a saying "one two" into microphones...
The Angels with Doc out the front were stalwarts of that era. The Brewster brother played hard, accurate and driving music while a seemingly manic Doc sang and jumped and bounced and leapt and held the audience in his thrall.
I was hooked, as were many of my friends. Doc and The Angels were the very face of pub rock for us. Yes there were many other bands but for us the big four were Cold Chisel, Midnight Oil, The Radiators and The Angels.
Thank You Doc for the wild nights and for being the match that lit many teenagers dream of being a superstar frontman.
We Are Diminished.
Vale Doc Neeson.
Bernard "Doc" Neeson frontman of the seminal Aussie rock group "The Angels" passed away today after a 17 month battle with a brain tumour.
Most of you will not have heard of Doc, but please indulge me.
I grew up in the 70's and 80's in Sydney. In those days Sydney had a massive live band culture and Australia developed a sub-genre of hard honest "pub rock". AC/DC, The Divinyls, Midnight Oil are possibly some of the acts that you may have heard about, these guys and girls honed their craft in the crucible of playing night after night in pubs to drunks.
Even when we were underage it didn't stop us from being part of the Sydney Pub Rock scene. It led me to a 30+ year part time career wearing black a saying "one two" into microphones...
The Angels with Doc out the front were stalwarts of that era. The Brewster brother played hard, accurate and driving music while a seemingly manic Doc sang and jumped and bounced and leapt and held the audience in his thrall.
I was hooked, as were many of my friends. Doc and The Angels were the very face of pub rock for us. Yes there were many other bands but for us the big four were Cold Chisel, Midnight Oil, The Radiators and The Angels.
Thank You Doc for the wild nights and for being the match that lit many teenagers dream of being a superstar frontman.
We Are Diminished.
Vale Doc Neeson.