CULTURE BONFEST
Rock fans from across the world and a host of tribute bands are heading to Kirriemuir for the three-day Bonfest
Bon anniversaire to the biggest ever AC/DC festival
Up to 4,000 rockers are expected to descend on Kirriemuir to celebrate the tenth annual Bonfest
BY SCOTT PEDDIE S
tepping through the wind- ing, narrow lanes of the small Angus town of Kir- riemuir, it’s not long before you find yourself staring
up into the youthful face of a boy, eternally occupied in the playing of pipes. It is, of course, a statue of Peter Pan, the most famous literary cre-
ation of the town’s celebrated son, JM Barrie, sculpted in bronze; ex- plore a little further and you’ll also discover a fountain and museum preserving the name and memory of the author of the Boy Who Never Grew Up. Barrie, however, is not the only
illustrious former resident re- membered in the place names and icons of this ‘Gateway to the Glens’. Pound the pavements for a while longer and you may well encounter one or two travellers on a different pilgrimage entirely. In stark contrast, these stud-
ded leather and ripped, skin-tight denim wearing rock fans are there for Bon Scott, the talismanic front
14 | EVENTSBASE | MARCH 2016
man of world-conquering heavy- metal outfit AC/DC, who also once called Kirriemuir home. And like Barrie he’s not been forgotten. Tere’s a street bearing his name, and a memorial plaque in the cen- tre of town.
BUT FOR SOME this offering to one of the greats of rock, who died in tragic circumstances at the age of just 33, does not go far enough. In Fremantle, Western Australia, which welcomed the emigrating family of 6-year-old Ronald Belford Scott in 1952, a likeness of Scott can be found, astride a Marshall amplifier. So for the past two years, Kir-
riemuir community group DD8 Mu- sic has been working hard to right that wrong, and at the 10th annual Bon Scott International Festival, Bonfest, on April 30, the fruits of their labours will be unveiled. After a two-year crowdfund-
ing campaign, which has drawn the support of AC/DC themselves, a life-sized bronze statue of Scott will be installed in the town as the centrepiece of the festival in this landmark year. “It came about through an
organic process where we listened to the fans attending Bonfest over a number of years asking why we didn’t have a statue of Bon,” says former DD8 Music chairman
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