In his own words, Angels frontman Bernard "Doc" Neeson was "a crazed alien trapped in a cockeyed world." To Rolling Stone, he was a "long-legged howler" fronting a "nuclear-boogie band".
To others, Neeson was manic, demonic, cyclonic, dynamic, deranged, a livewire.
Neeson and the Angels brought danger and sophistication into Australian pubs with tracks such as their anthemic 1976 hit Am I Ever Going To See Your Face Again.
"He was a total romantic and a bit sort of crazy," recalls long-time Angels manager John Woodruff, who shared a bungalow with Neeson in the band's early days.
Neeson, who was then studying film and drama at Flinders University, decided to present his thesis on the inside of a rubbish bin. After putting his head and a light inside the bin to write, he threw a party.
"The fact that the ice and the drinks went in the rubbish bin was a bit of a problem," Woodruff says.
"I vividly remember the angst, the realisation that he'd wiped out hours of work.
"He was a very extreme kind of person. There wasn't a moment when his heart or mind was not on the art he was doing."
Woodruff remembers a night when Neeson threw fish skeletons into the audience and another when he set himself on fire.
He had a routine in which he would put his hand in a barbecue glove, dip it into kerosene during an encore blackout, then light it.
"He'd got a bit excited - the kerosene went down in the glove and, of course, when he put his hand in the air, it flowed down through his clothes and he was on fire."
Neeson died from a brain tumour on June 4.
