MORE THAN A HANDFUL: AC/DC LIFT AND SEPARATE WIND BACK WEDNESDAY
- Bernard Zuel
- 3 hours ago
- 3 min read
While hardly a surprise given the rampant, and well informed, speculation of the previous week, it was still big enough news that AC/DC were returning to Australia - see dates at the bottom - that some people even stopped talhttp://certainly.Inking about bombing the shit out of another country for a bit. (I mean, they didn’t stop the actual bombing. Let’s not get carried away. But it was a start.)
Deserving of a bit more than passing mention in this was the news that the best live band in the country, Amyl & The Sniffers – a group with its roots in both punk and the pub rock scene of the 1970s, from which AC/DC emerged – would be the support act. If that doesn’t encourage you to get to the shows early and get your thrills on, you’re probably dead below the waist and above the shoulders.
Back to AC/DC, in the discussions of who is in the band (even fewer people than you know), would it be the last tour (you wouldn’t want to bet your life on it), and would it be any different to previous tours (come on, have they been different in the past 30 years?), thoughts turned to one of those previous tours.
Wind Back Wednesday went into the back pocket of those old jeans and came up with this 2010 show from one of the stadiums the band played on that tour, which was the last time most of us saw founder Malcolm Young in the band. Like it? Almost certainly. In any case, you might call it the A or C cup of life.
___________________________
AC/DC
ANZ Stadium, Sydney, February 18, 2010
THE WOMEN WERE ON boyfriends’ shoulders, in the almost forgotten tradition of outdoor rock concerts. They were singing loudly, smiling broadly and soon, and regularly, pulling their tops up or down to flash bras to whoops of celebration around the stadium ("phwoar, check out the Berlei underwire on that," presumably), approval on stage from Brian Johnson, and the loving attention of cameramen who must have learnt their trade at the cricket in the 1980s.
Who says only blokes go to AC/DC? Who says these songs won’t appeal across the genders as well as across the ages? Sexist? As Spinal Tap's Nigel Tufnel once said, "what's wrong with being sexy?”
Um, did it strike anyone as odd that the song these women were so enthusiastically participating in, The Jack, is about Bon Scott catching the clap from an enthusiastically "active" fan? I know, I know, paying attention to lyrics. At an AC/DC show. What am I, some kind of woolly-woofter wine-drinking, salad-forking, Toyota-driving wimp?
(Incidentally, just how meatheaded must support act Wolfmother be if they make AC/DC, a band not noted for intellectualising, seem like brainiacs by comparison?)
Anyway, back to the music. How was it? Same as the last time. And the time before that. Which is as it should be: AC/DC don't do change you pantywaist.
The hair may be stringier but Angus Young still plays solos like he’s entertaining the class while the teacher’s back is turned. The stamina may have dropped a little but Johnson still spits out the words like he’s passing two bowling balls. And a few pins. The lines may have etched bit deeper but Malcolm Young still looks like the kid who nicked the durries as well as his Dad’s guitar. And the other two blokes are still the other two blokes.
It’s a scientific fact that there is a tear in the space-time continuum while ever you are in AC/DC world.
Whether it’s the interminable solo during Let There Be Rock (allowing the rest of the band a metaphoric cuppa break) or the obvious disparity between a relatively new song and a ‘70s classic played back to back (War Machine followed by High Voltage was like having a brumby chase down a knackered draughthorse) or just the way the cannons’ roar in the closing For Those About To Rock shakes your innards (jelly belly in this case had nothing to do with the pre-gig schoonerburgers) this is as it was and as it shall ever be.
AC/DC are the foundation (garment) of rock.
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In 2025 AC/DC play:
Melbourne Cricket Ground – November 12
Accor Stadium, Sydney – November 21
Adelaide bp Grand Final – November 30
Optus Stadium, Perth – December 4
Suncorp Stadium, Brisbane – December 14