AC/DC Lane

You are standing in a laneway that used to have no name at all. It was just Corporation Lane, an anonymous service alley. Then in two thousand and four, the City of Melbourne unanimously voted to rename it AC/DC Lane, in honour of the band that gave this city its hardest rocking anthem. The Lord Mayor John So launched it with a speech about a laneway to heaven, and then bagpipers played It's a Long Way to the Top If You Wanna Rock and Roll, the song famously filmed on a flatbed truck rolling down Swanston Street in nineteen seventy-six.

But here is a detail that will make music nerds smile. Look at the street sign. You will notice the lightning bolt slash between AC and DC is missing. The trademark slash that appears in the band's logo contravened the naming policy of the Office of the Registrar of Geographic Names. Punctuation rules killed the thunder. Officially, on paper, this is ACDC Lane, no slash.

The lane quickly became a magnet for street art, much of it dedicated to the band. In two thousand and eighteen, as part of the State Government's Rockin the Laneways funding programme, local artist Mike Makatron created a sculpture of former lead singer Bon Scott bursting out of the brickwork, microphone in hand. Scott, who died in nineteen eighty at the age of thirty-three, grew up partly in Melbourne after emigrating from Scotland as a child. The band formed in Sydney but Melbourne claims them, and this lane is the proof. It runs between Flinders Lane and Exhibition Street, surrounded by some of the best live music venues in the city. On a warm evening, you can hear guitars bleeding through the walls from half a dozen gigs happening simultaneously.