"Am I ever gonna see your face again..."

If you’re Australian, and of a certain vintage, you know what comes next - which is why I enjoyed the hell out of this ABC piece explaining where the tradition came from.

One thing the band was never able to figure out was where the cheeky chant came from and how it spread so quickly.

"After we heard it for the first time in Mount Isa, we worked our way down the east coast and then we went across to Perth and the crowd did it in Perth as well," he said.

Screaming the chant along with the rest of the Mount Isa crowd in 1983 was resident Mark Anderson.

He swears the phrase was born in Mount Isa three years before The Angels ever arrived, when a broken-hearted DJ saw his ex-girlfriend in the crowd while playing a Sunday session at the Barkly Hotel.

"He pointed to her in the crowd and said 'this song is for you' before he played 'Am I Ever Gonna See Your Face Again'," Mr Anderson remembered.

When the girl started dancing, an emotional DJ told her 'No way, get f****d, f**k off', Mr Anderson said, before his spurned ex-love departed the dance floor.

He said the chant quickly became second nature for Mount Isa crowds listening to the song.

Because Mount Isa was so isolated, it was common for people to travel to coastal cities for weekend getaways, and so, the chant spread, Mr Anderson said.

"We'd go to Cairns, Mackay, Atherton … I remember being at the Seaview Hotel in Townsville and we'd all be chanting that response after the chorus," he said.

The rowdy retort gained momentum quickly and Mr Brewster said the song soon became a crowd favourite on international stages.