Leading lights of Australia's rock fraternity have turned out to pay tribute to Australian music pioneer Vince Lovegrove at a farewell memorial service in Sydney.
Members of Cold Chisel, The Angels and Gang Gajang joined hundreds of Lovegrove's friends and family at Bondi Pavilion on Friday to celebrate the life of the 65-year-old journalist.
Lovegrove died in a car accident six weeks ago when his Volkswagen Kombi left the road near Federal, inland from Byron Bay in northern NSW.
He was farewelled in Mullumbimby last Friday.
Former Midnight Oil frontman Peter Garrett, who spoke with Lovegrove on the day he died, said the music identity was excited for the future after he'd received a job offer to write for the Northern Star newspaper.
"Vince led a really varied life and threw himself into things with a grand amount of vigour and an irrepressible cheeky nature with it," Mr Garrett said.
"He was hotwired into music whether it was talking about it, writing about it or performing it and came from that generation where music was in his blood and in every vein."
Lovegrove was considered a pioneer of the Australia's rock music industry. He played in the Valentines in the 1960s alongside Bon Scott, whom he later introduced to AC/DC.
His passion for music was unquenchable and his driven management style was credited with transforming The Divinyls into a world famous pop group.
But Lovegrove's life was also touched by tragedy when he lost both his wife Suzi Sidewinder in 1987 and son Troy to AIDS in 1993.
He told their stories in two documentaries, Suzi's Story and A Kid Called Troy, and was heralded for helping to change public attitudes towards the disease.
Speakers at Friday's memorial service included old friends, Cold Chisel manager Chris Bastic, radio identity Holger Brockmann and Rick Grossman, who played bass for The Divinyls and Hoodoo Gurus.
Mourners heard anecdotes, such as the time Lovegrove got a group of friends into New York's Studio 54 club by pretending he was Colin Hay from Men At Work, and another when he went fists first into an American record label to demand The Divinyls get better support.
"He understood rock `n' roll music entirely," said Grossman.
"He loved to create the tension and he loved that aggression that makes a rock `n' roll band great."
