On Tuesday, November 28, 2017, Malcolm Young was farewelled at St Mary’s Cathedral in Sydney. Throughout the service, his Gretsch guitar, the one the AC/DC camp called “The Beast,” rested on top of his coffin. When the service ended, his younger brother Angus Young carried that guitar out to the hearse as Malcolm’s coffin was loaded inside.
Photographers caught Angus coming down the cathedral steps with it. For anyone who had watched the two brothers side by side on stage for nearly four decades, the photo needed no caption.
Why that guitar mattered so much
“The Beast” began life as a red 1963 Gretsch Jet Firebird. It came to Malcolm Young as a hand-me-down from his older brother George Young and George’s songwriting partner Harry Vanda, the two men behind the Easybeats and, later, the producers of AC/DC’s early records.
Malcolm made it his own. He pulled out two of its three pickups, and over the years the finish was stripped back to the wood. Gretsch itself describes it as his career-long mainstay.
So when Angus carried it out of St Mary’s, he was holding more than one brother’s instrument. It was a guitar that had come to Malcolm by way of George, and both brothers were now gone.
Two brothers in less than a month
George Young died on October 22, 2017, at 70. Malcolm Young died 27 days later, on November 18, at 64, after several years of dementia that had forced him to retire from AC/DC in 2014. The band said he passed away peacefully with his family by his bedside.
The same day, Angus shared a letter on the AC/DC website. Part of it read:
“As his brother it is hard to express in words what he has meant to me during my life, the bond we had was unique and very special.”
Inside St Mary’s Cathedral
The funeral was a traditional Catholic service conducted by Monsignor Tony Doherty. The cathedral choir sang “Amazing Grace,” “The Lord Is My Shepherd” and “Jerusalem.” None of Malcolm’s immediate family spoke publicly during the service. According to Crikey’s account, the eulogies came from his nephew Bradley Horsburgh and from David Albert of Alberts, the company that had backed both the Easybeats and AC/DC.
Past and present members of AC/DC filled the front of the church. Brian Johnson, Cliff Williams, former drummer Phil Rudd, former bassist Mark Evans and nephew Stevie Young, who had taken Malcolm’s place on rhythm guitar, were all there, along with Australian rock names including Jimmy Barnes and Rose Tattoo’s Angry Anderson. Crikey’s writer also noted that Angus, visibly distressed, walked down the aisle on the arm of Malcolm’s son, Ross, to acknowledge the fans seated in the back pews.
Every mourner was given a memorial booklet with a black guitar pick inside. One side carried the AC/DC lightning bolt and Malcolm’s initials; the other carried his dates of birth and death. The family’s message asked people to remember Malcolm “as a man who was generous and had immense talent.”
The song that finally played
Inside the cathedral, there had been hymns and nothing else. The music Malcolm Young was famous for did not arrive until the very end.
As the procession left, the Scots College Pipes and Drums marched ahead of the hearse down College Street, playing a medley that included “Waltzing Matilda” and “It’s a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock ‘n’ Roll).” Hundreds of fans lined the street outside.
The choice carried its own family history. Angus, Malcolm and Bon Scott wrote “It’s a Long Way to the Top,” and it was released in December 1975. The bagpipes on it were George Young’s idea. Bon Scott had been in a pipe band as a teenager, so George suggested he play them, without realizing Scott had been the band’s drummer, not a piper. Scott took on the pipes anyway, despite never having played them before, and in 1976 the band filmed the famous clip on the back of a flatbed truck rolling down Swanston Street in Melbourne, pipers and all.
Forty-two years later, those pipes played Malcolm Young away from the cathedral, minutes after Angus had carried George’s old hand-me-down out to the hearse.
What came after
The service was followed by a private family burial. Angus Young went on with AC/DC, and Stevie Young still plays Malcolm’s parts on stage today.
If you still have a worn-out copy of T.N.T. or High Voltage somewhere, where were you the first time you heard those bagpipes kick in?