Doc Neeson

Bernard Patrick "Doc" Neeson OAM (4 January 1947 – 4 June 2014) was an Australian singer and musician, best known as the lead singer for the Australian hard rock band The Angels.

Early life

Neeson was born in Belfast in 1947. One of six children, he was raised a Catholic although the family lived in a Protestant area of Belfast. He attended boarding school at Terenure College in Dublin. In 1960, aged 13, Neeson emigrated with his family to Adelaide, South Australia.

Neeson was conscripted into the Australian army, serving as an education corps sergeant in Papua New Guinea for eighteen months in the late 1960s. He subsequently went back to Flinders University and completed degrees in film and drama.

Career

Before The Angels, Neeson was a member of the Moonshine Jug and String Band with Rick and John Brewster. The band became The Keystone Angels in 1974, and eventually The Angels, with Neeson as lead singer and frontman.

He initiated The Tour of Duty - Concert for the Troops held for the InterFET Troops in East Timor which took place in December 1999. He performed a number of Angels songs and duets with John Farnham, Kylie Minogue and The Living End.

On New Year's Eve 1999, Neeson announced his departure from The Angels at the MGM Grand Darwin Millennium Concert after suffering a severe spinal injury in a car accident on a Sydney "M4" motorway that year. Always known for his very physical live performances, he was warned by a back specialist that he ran the risk of being in a wheelchair if he kept performing.

2000 to 2014

In December 2003, he formed the band Doc Neeson's Angels. In February 2001, Neeson performed at the Tour of Duty Encore! concert at theAustralian War Memorial in Canberra. In the same year the ABC had featured Doc Neeson and The Angels in the music TV series Long Way To The Top which was an insight to 50 years of Australian rock 'n' roll.

In May 2005, Neeson formed the band Red Phoenix. and released a self-titled album. The band lineup was Doc Neeson, David Lowy, Peter Northcote, Jim Hilbun and Fab Omodei.

In 2006, Doc Neeson of The Angels was featured on a postage stamp forAustralia Post as part of their "Australian Rock Posters The Stamps"collection.

In August and September 2007 Neeson appeared and toured with the Doc Neeson's Angels for the Countdown Spectacular 2 tour.

During October and November 2007, Doc Neeson's Angels was on the "Tour de Force" tour of Iraq, Afghanistan and Kuwait, supporting the Australian troops. Neeson was presented with two military medals in Baghdad while touring across the Middle East as part of a morale-boosting concert series for Australian troops known as 'Tour de Force.'The band lineup for this tour consisted of Dave Leslie (guitar), Mick Skelton (drums), Sara Gray (bass) and Mitch Hutchinson (guitar).

In 2008, Doc Neeson reunited with the original Angels band—Rick and John Brewster, Buzz Bidstrup and Chris Bailey—who have since done extensive national touring. Multiple Angels CD and DVD releases by Alberts Music coincided with the release by Albert Music of the 30th Anniversary edition of the “Face To Face” album, along with previously unreleased material and a DVD of a live concert in Melbourne “This is It Folks!”

In August 2008, Doc Neeson and his songwriting partners in The Angels, the Brewster Brothers, were inducted into The Australian Songwriters Association Hall of Fame, in recognition of their songwriting contribution to Australian music.

In 2009, Neeson toured nationally with The Angels to sell-out crowds, and was named by The Irish Echo newspaper as one of the Top 100 Irish People in Australia of all time. He also performed in “A Symphony of Angels” in April 2010 at the Adelaide Festival Theatre with The Adelaide Arts Orchestra.

In 2010, he began a solo project. In November of that year he played semi-acoustic concerts with a band including former Angels bassist Jim Hilbun. For the time being he was still involved with The Angels and was preparing to record a new solo album.

In 2012 the Doc Neeson band continued to perform across Australia. The current band lineup consists of Mitch Hutchinson (guitar), Mark Fenwick (guitar), Dave Roberts (drums) and Justin Bianchi (bass).

Declining health and death

On 10 January 2013 it was announced that Neeson was diagnosed with a brain tumour and would undergo immediate treatment. The Angels 100% Tour management released this statement: "To all The Angels friends, fans, venues and media It is with deep regret and shock that The Angels have to announce that Mr Doc Neeson was admitted to hospital over the recent Christmas/New Year period. He has just been diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer, (brain tumour). This will require immediate intensive radiation and chemotherapy treatment and will continue for the next 6–12 months."

John Brewster and Rick Brewster, who formed The Angels with Doc Neeson in 1974, recording more than dozen studio and live albums, and performing more than 3000 live shows together, said: “We are thinking of all the good times we’ve had and the camaraderie that came with them, the hard work that we all did over so many years.

“Our thoughts are with Doc, his family and others close to him, and we wish him a speedy and complete recovery”.

On 28 April 2014, the ABC series Australian Story broadcast A Very Good Rascal, a biographical documentary about Neeson, his musical career and his medical condition.

Neeson died on 4 June 2014.