Bee Gees Way in Redcliffe, Queensland: Are the Bee Gees Australian?

The Bee Gees were born on the Isle of Man, before moving to Manchester, then Australia as children. They lived in the Queensland town of Redcliffe, where Bee Gees Way pays tribute to the Anglo-Australian pop stars.

Are the Bee Gees Australian? Well, it depends whether you’re going by where they were born or where their career started.

The Gibb Brothers were born on the Isle Of Man, but spent their early years in the outskirts of Manchester in England. The family moved over to Australia in 1958, when Barry was 12 years old and the twins were just nine. They moved to Redcliffe – 40km north of Brisbane in Queensland. The brothers had been playing music together back in the UK, but it was in Redcliffe where things started to happen.

Bee Gees Way in Redcliffe

And it is Redcliffe where Bee Gees Way can be enjoyed. This is a small laneway that has been turned into an open air mini-museum. At the entrance to Bee Gees Way, is a statue devoted to three young boys, all barefoot and one carrying a guitar. The names of the boys are Bodding, Basser and Woggie, which turn out to be the nicknames of the three Gibb Brothers.

Further down the lane are yellow plaques bearing the names of Bee Gees songs – Woman In Love, I Started A Joke, How Deep Is Your Love, Massachusetts et al.

On their own, the statue and song titles would be a subtle little tribute to a band that was founded and named in Redcliffe. But the lane is far more riotously kitsch than that.

It starts with a huge glass plinth bearing Barry Gibb’s recollections of playing at the Redcliffe Speedway, where the brothers would sing via a PA system on the back of a lorry between races. The crowd threw money on the track and the boys picked it up.

The Bee Gees’ first recording contract

It was while doing this that racing driver Bill Goode and radio DJ Bill Gates spotted them. The pair signed the boys up on their first contract. It was signed at the Gibb family home on Oxley Avenue, on March 16th, 1959. We know that because a replica of the contract, signatures and all, has been blown up and placed inside the glass plinth.

They became the BGs (which comes from the initials of Bill Goode, Bill Gates and Barry Gibb, rather than the usually assumed ‘Brothers Gibb’). As they started to make TV and radio appearances in Australia, that became the Bee Gees.

A more recognisable bronze statue stands opposite. This features Barry with his long mane, Maurice with his hat and Robin with his earring.

Bee Gees Way mural

Behind that is a 70 metre mural featuring stencil-like images of the brothers, and more of Barry’s thoughts. ‘Mo’ was the extrovert, who always had a gang of kids running behind him in the schoolyard; a “magnetic personality” who was “never off stage”.

Robin is portrayed as a dichotomy, two people in one, who was as obsessed with history as music.

It’s this personal, reminiscing approach that plays a big part in making Bee Gees Way so odd. It could have been a lionising tribute, and it could have been an outdoor museum, but it’s neither. It’s more an extended interview with an old man, possibly a few glasses of wine to the good, taking a misty-eyed look back at the past.

Opposite the mural is a wall covered in lots and lots of photos, covering everything from the brothers’ parents getting married to them hauling Grammy awards and Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame inductions. On the way, there are sweet childhood pics, and ludicrously camp disco-era silver-costumed promo shots. Each is accompanied by a caption from Barry, who generally resorts to half-hearted jokes such as “Was it a hit?” under recording studio photos rather than any real deep insight.

Bee Gees back in the UK

Larger panels give a touch more sense of the Bee Gee story, particularly the one where Barry recollects arriving in Southampton in 1967. They had returned to the UK in a bid to make it big internationally. They were quickly told that “groups are out” and “You have to be an Eric Clapton or you don’t stand a chance”.

A big screen plays footage of Barry being interviewed, interspersed with videos of Bee Gees songs, with the air of justifiable if mildly daggy indulgence tempering the overall kitsch daftness of the lane’s very existence.

But Redcliffe is more than happy milking its claim to fame, and Barry has happily obliged with a few memories from his short time there. “I have changed, but the child inside me has not,” are his words immortalised on the wall. “I am still here on Redcliffe Beach, fishing for that tiger shark.”

More Queensland towns to visit

The massive markets of Eumundi

Platypus-viewing hotspot Yungaburra

Rainforest-shrouded Cape Tribulation

The coloured sands of Rainbow Beach

Golden Gumboot-hosting Tully

Mooloolaba, home of humpback whale swims