Suit yourself, lads: The Easybeats take on London at its own game. Credit:Tony Mott/ABC In some respects the timing could hardly be better, or more poignant. George Young, co-founder of the band in 1964 and half of its songwriting nucleus – first with singer Stevie Wright (Christian Byers) and more prolifically with guitarist Harry Vanda (Mackenzie Fearnley) – died last month. His younger brother Malcolm, who played much the same role in AC/DC, died a week ago. Malcolm is the first named character here, though he's a minor figure in the story. The opening shots are of immigrants arriving in Sydney, and young Malcolm is a Scottish tearaway darting among queues. We get a brief glimpse of Angus too, aged eight or so but already recognisable – he's in school shorts and jumper, satchel over his shoulder, just as he has been on stage for the past 40-odd years. But the cuteness is kept at the margins in a story that is very much about how bloody hard it is to be in a band both before and after success. In a sense, it's a handy companion piece to the excellent documentary The Go-Betweens: Right Here (on iView), another tale of a band from Australia seeking affirmation and approval in London and almost falling apart, in every sense, along the way.

Bottle this: The energy of a tight band in a small room. Credit:Tony Mott/ABC It's also a story about immigrants making good, despite the inhospitality of their new home. The first episode is shot through with scenes of white Australians taunting, abusing, beating up the new arrivals at Villawood, where the band formed in a washroom. Harry – then still know as Johannes Van Den Berg – is viciously beaten by a bunch of thugs who claim they "don't like wogs", even when their skin is white and their hair blond. He's one of two Dutchies (the other is bass player Dick Diamonde, born Dingeman Van Der Sluys and raised in Australia from the age of four). There's a Scot (Young), a Liverpudlian (drummer Snowy Fleet, played by Arthur McBain) and an Australian-raised Yorkshireman (Wright). All are caught between worlds, until they're not. When a journalist in London calls them an English band, they take offence. "We're Australian," they say. "But we didn't realise that until now." The real Easybeats in a scene from Peter Clifton's documentary Easy Come Easy Go. It's not all so uplifting, though. Wright's womanising and heroin use (dated here to the mid-1960s, not the early '70s as is generally accepted) regularly threaten to derail things; Dick is torn between his Jehovah's Witness upbringing and the temptations of the road. Fleet ultimately chooses family over band. Just as they get a glimpse of the top – in the obligatory scene set in Andy Warhol's Factory – they realise it's over (the band broke up in 1969).

Director Matt Saville and writer Christopher Lee handle all this with a minimum of sentiment or splash. There's some excusable compression and fudging of dates, but they do a pretty good job of capturing the sweaty excitement of a great act playing a small room, and the sense of a band always on the run – from racist thugs at the start, from jealous boyfriends as they're rising, from screaming hordes at the top. Mackenzie Fearnley as Harry Vanda and William Rush as George Young. Credit:Tony Mott/ABC Maybe it's true that they were never happier than when they first started jamming in that Nissen hut in Villawood, but this show is a welcome reminder of why we should be so glad they didn't simply hang their ambitions out to dry. Man, that music. It makes you proud to be Australian – in all its multicultural glory. Facebook: karlquinnjournalist Twitter: @karlkwin Podcast: The Clappers