There was a time when it seemed likely the answer to the question ‘Will I ever see your face again?’ was not, ‘No way, get fucked, fuck off.’ But simply, ‘No way!’

On December 1, 1999, a 10-tonne truck ploughed into the back of Angels lead singer, Doc Neeson’s car when it was stopped at a Sydney tollgate. The injuries involving his shoulder, neck and spine were so severe that specialist told him if he didn’t give up performing he’d end up paralysed for life.

In 2005, five-and-a-half years, a lot of pain, grit and some true friendship on, Doc Neeson got back on stage again with the band Red Phoenix featuring Angels’ bassist, Jim Hilbun, and guitarist, David Lowy, both of whom are by his side again in Doc Neeson’s Angels (DNA) which debuted in the middle of last year.

Neeson’s comeback is lump in the throat stuff. He’s a big man who at one time was reduced to being unable to move from one side of a room to another. I remember him leaping around the rafters of the Charles Hotel in Perth in the late 70s, pogoing maniacally across the stage at Selinas in Sydney in the mid-1980s, launching himself off speakers at an outdoor show at the WACA in Perth in the late ‘80s. Just to see him back at all is somewhat of a miracle.

“I’m at a fairly good stage now,” Neeson says from an outer Perth suburb where he’s visiting a friend. “I’m going to the gym a few times a week so I’m going along quite well. I still have some residual problems but they are manageable. When you get hit by a 10-tonne truck … well, it could have been a lot worse. It was a very painful recovery but I’m back and gigging now from time to time now.

“I don’t think I ever gave hope I’d make it back but I did agree with the doctor for along time. I felt I couldn’t do anything. Maybe, it’s just one of those things I had to work through. I’ve made a good recovery and now I’m optimistic I can get up on stage and put on a good show.

“The band has been great. It’s a very strong band [it also includes Baby Animals guitarist, Dave Leslie who, unfortunately for Neeson fans, won’t be at the two DNA shows on January 26 as he’ll be back on the road with the reformed Baby Animals] and plays as well as The Angels ever did. But it has been weird getting on stage with people you don’t have a lot of history with.”

Make no mistake, the man is tough. He served in Vietnam for two years from 1968-70 after, like so many young men of the times, being conscripted into the Army. And he’s never forgotten what it’s like. He’s performed for the troops in East Timor and just recently did 7 or 8 shows in the Middle East. Where things did get a little hairy.

“For starters, a bunch of rockets were fired right at the spot where we were supposed to be playing. The army figured there were a couple of spotters in the camp who were leaking out the information. They have to employ locals to do some jobs such as hygiene and so on.

“Another time, shortly after we arrived, we were flying in Afghanistan and as we were coming into land, the pilot suddenly said, “Put on your seatbelts, we’ve got a lock on.” By this he meant a heat-seeking missile was on our tail. We were in a C130 which is a big transport plane with four engines and the pilot starts throwing us around like it’s an aerobatics aircraft. At that moment I realised this wasn’t like a TV show – we were in the line of sight of a serious weapon.

“All of a sudden the pilot flipped the plane 90 degrees - he’d calculated on the radar at which moment to flip the plane so the missile passed under its belly and kept on going!

“That same night we were playing and you could hear the guns going off around the perimeter.

“Another time we were in Kabul driving to our base in a convoy of four heavily-armed Toyota Landcruisers. We were roaring up this road that was heavily congested with cars, donkeys, people and taxis when over the two-way our driver was told to turn right at Purple Alley. We had to turn very fast and we found that 30 seconds after we got around the corner a booby trap went off on the road we were previously on – it had been primed for us.”

Hands up all those who aren’t going to Afghanistan any time soon …

Back on the home front, there have been rumours going round that Doc and the rest of the original Angels, who have been touring without him for many years now, might be on the verge of making up and getting back together. Mind you, there’s some things that would need fixing first. When Doc’s injuries forced him to part ways with the band …

“There have always been some enquiries about whether we’d do shows together,” Neeson says. “We’ve had a couple of chats – as in ‘it might be a good idea’. But there are quite a lot of things to sort out. A few personal issues that would need to be sorted out before I would go back.

“To be honest, I’m really having a fantastic time developing the Doc Neeson career. When we did the Doc Neeson’s Angels acoustic album for Liberation it was a big challenge but I think we succeeded and proved that you can take a song like Take A Long Line and like it both ways, electric and acoustic.

“What actually made me see the possibility of trying something different with all those classic Angels songs was The Church’s acoustic album. They made all the songs stand on their own so we ended up with their drummer Tim Powell [a noted producer and engineer in his own right] producing our album.

“He’s a terrific guy, very easy going. He did something Dylan does with some of the tracks – he’d make us think we were having a run through and then he’d call out, “That’s good. Let’s move on to the next song.” And that was it. You can play the life out of a song in the studio but one of Tim’s skills is he knows the take to use and once he’s got it, that’s it. As a result, most of the tracks on the album are from the first few takes.”

The big man is back. Once more, folks, over the top …