AC/DC to bring new line-up to Australia for Rock or Bust tour

IT’S been a hellish year, but AC/DC will still let there be rock. And the bandmates are dab hands at picking themselves up and keeping on going, writes Shelly Hadfield.

It’s a long way to the end for AC/DC

FOR those about to rock again, it has been a tumultuous 12 months.

“You pick yourself up, dust yourself down and just keep going,” AC/DC lead singer Brian Johnson told the LA Times just days before the new-look band’s first public gig, at the Coachella festival in California, last week.

AC/DC are old hands at picking themselves up and keeping going — as they proved in 1980 when they bravely picked Johnson to replace the late Bon Scott. The new line-up delivered the classic Back In Black LP, and they became a rock phenomenon.

But the last year has tested the band’s power of recovery even more.

In April 2014, AC/DC confirmed rumours that founding member Malcolm Young was unwell. In September, the guitarist retired from the group. He is now in full-time care in Sydney, suffering from dementia, after having undergone heart and lung operations in recent years.

Then last November, long-serving drummer Phil Rudd was charged by New Zealand police with “attempting to procure murder”. The charge was later dropped, but he is still awaiting trial on denied charges of threatening to kill and drug possession. His legal issues mean the band have had to replace him too.

So when AC/DC’s latest global trek opens in a fortnight in the Netherlands, where 60-year-old Angus Young has lived for many years, he will be the only original member.

And the line-up this year is a very different beast to even the one which blew away millions on the Black Ice tour of 2008-2010.

Malcolm has been replaced by a family member, nephew Stevie. And Chris Slade returns in place of Rudd, not for the first time. When Rudd spent a decade away from the band from 1983, Slade filled the drum seat for half that time.

Brian told the Los Angeles Times a couple of weeks ago: “Before the dementia really took hold of Malcolm, he said, ‘Just get out and make music, lads — just for me one more time’. That’s what we’re doing.

“You live on and you have a wonderful memory of them (Malcolm and Rudd) always with you, but you’re not going to stop doing what you do. Otherwise you die inside, you know? And we would die — I would, if I didn’t do what I was doing. There’d be nothing.

“Times change, things change, so you’ve just got to keep doing what you’re doing, basically, and just hope that they’ll come back for more.”

There can be little doubt the fans will do just that. Whatever the line-up, the brand inspires awesome loyalty, and grandparents are now bringing grandchildren to their shows.

When tickets for the year-end Australian leg of Rock or Bust go on sale on Monday morning, tens of thousands will be snapped up in minutes. And the initial schedule appears to permit extra shows by public demand.

Angus Young - the only remaining original band member - on stage.

JESSE Fink, author of 2014 biography The Youngs: The Brothers Who Built AC/DC, says: “They’re AC/DC, they always bounce back. They lost Bon Scott and then they became even bigger without him.

“I think it would have been devastating to lose Malcolm. He was the boss of the band. He dictated the sound of the band.

“After 40 years, losing someone who was that important, not only in terms of the direction of the band, but also musically, would have been quite devastating.”

But, he says, Stevie Young has been close to the band for a long time and is a solid replacement.

The bigger question is how fans are responding to Chris Slade as a replacement for Phil Rudd.

He says while Slade is a technically gifted drummer, Rudd gave AC/DC “that extra X-factor”.

“Losing one member like Malcolm is pretty hard to take for AC/DC fans but the fact that Phil Rudd came into all that trouble and now they have lost him as well, I think there are some AC/DC fans who perhaps don’t think going to see AC/DC is going to be the same.

“From my perspective, I think the sound of the band is still really good.

“They’re still doing what they’ve always done.

“The part that I have some reservations about is Brian Johnson’s singing. I don’t think his voice is really quite up to it anymore.

“From what I’ve heard at Coachella, on songs like Thunderstruck he was really struggling. There is so much love for Brian out there. He’s been there for 35 years. I don’t think it’s going to matter to most AC/DC fans. I think the Brian that exploded out of the blocks in the early 1980s, post Bon, is very different to the Brian that is up on the stage in 2015.”

Paul Cashmere, executive producer of Noise11.com, says it will be sad not to see Malcolm Young on stage. But while he agrees that Stevie Young understands the DNA of AC/DC, Slade has a different style to Rudd.

“It’s going to change the flavour of the sound slightly.”

But he says that at Coachella, where AC/DC performs again today, and at the Grammys in February where the new line-up debuted, AC/DC sounded as good as ever.

“They proved to us at the Grammy Awards that nothing has changed.”

Fink describes Rock or Bust — the band’s fifth No. 1 album in Australia — as their best since Back in Black. But then, Malcolm has a writing credit on every track.

Singer Brian Johnson says this tour is for Malcolm Young, who’s in a home with dementia.

FINK says he would love AC/DC to finally perform It’s A Long Way To The Top in Australia, a track they have not played live since Bon Scott’s death — particularly because many fans believe this may be their last tour, although no one is saying that.

“It’s such an important song for Australians. It’s almost like a defacto national anthem in a way and I think it’s the right time to do it,” he said.

“It’s A Long Way To The Top is the song that gave AC/DC their lift-off in 1975. Forty years later, potentially they’re wrapping it up in the same place it started. It would be a fantastic way to end. No one could begrudge AC/DC for deciding to call it quits after this tour.”

Promoter Garry Van Egmond believes it is unlikely.

“I can’t see them retiring because I know how much they enjoy performing and how much they care for the fans,” Van Egmond says.

“The thing about the success of AC/DC is that they have got such an enormous appeal. It really is from grandfathers to grandsons. It’s a very wide audience. I say it’s from eight to 80.”

He says the reaction to Coachella has been fantastic and he would expect a similar set list in Melbourne, with three songs from Rock or Bust in the 2 hour and 15 minute show.

He expects it to be extended to two shows in Melbourne.

Van Egmond says 700,000 people flocked to the Black Ice concerts in Australia, with 500,000 tickets selling in three hours.

When tickets went on sale for 23 stadium shows in Europe four weeks ago, 1.75 million tickets sold in just 24 hours.

“We certainly will do big business,” Van Egmond says.

Cashmere says it’s a “deadset absolute guaranteed sellout”, saying there was no other band of this calibre anywhere in the world.

“This is going to be listed as the biggest tour on the planet this year,” Cashmere says.

AC/DC will perform at Etihad Stadium in Melbourne on December 6. Tickets range from $99 to $159 and go on sale on Monday.

Originally published as AC/DC to bring new line-up to Australia for Rock or Bust tour