AC/DC It's a Long Way to the Top' music video shot in Swanston St Melbourne

LEGENDARY Australian rock band AC/DC filmed one of the oldest and globally best-known music videos in Swanston Street Melbourne in 1976.

With the band playing the hit song It's a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock 'n' Roll) on the tray of an old Bedford truck, the filming was organised by the team from TV music program Countdown – with no objections from the city council or police. Those were more casual days, in Australia. 

This is a landmark music video in the way that its spontaneity imbibes a wonderful energy between the band and the people in the street.

Here is how Ian ‘Molly’ Meldrum described this sensational event in his 2014 book The Never, Um, Ever Ending Story:

The most famous clip the Countdown crew made was AC/DC’s It's a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock 'n' Roll.

Directed by Paul Drane, it’s Melbourne’s most watched music video – and it had a budget of $380. Paul, a Countdown producer, came up with the idea of putting Bon [Scott, the lead singer, who also played bagpipes] on the back of a flatbed truck travelling along the city’s busiest street, Swanston Street, at lunchtime.

The clip was shot on three cameras between Bourke Street and Flinders Street on Monday, 23 February, 1976. We told the police and the council and they didn’t seem to mind – we didn’t even have to shut the street. These days, a clip like that would take weeks to plan and you’d be forced to get a stack of permits.

Excerpt from: Molly Meldrum, The Never, Um, Ever Ending Story. Published by Allen & Unwin (2014), Crows Nest, Sydney, NSW 2065. www.allenandunwin.com.

See the MUSIC clip on YouTube here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQluGs2SFRs