A thunderous night at the MCG proves AC/DC’s spark still burns bright
With Angus Young in charge of every aspect of this world tour, there’s no chance that AC/DC would be playing to anyone, anywhere if the world’s most famous schoolboy didn’t think it was up to scratch. | REVIEW
Angus Young has the best job in rock ‘n’ roll. He is instantly identifiable when he’s in character on stage, and all but invisible off it.
You don’t hear from Angus unless he’s got a reason to speak. Consequently, he has spent most of his 70 years being all but mute as a public figure, especially in recent years; strange, considering he plays lead guitar in AC/DC, one of the world’s most popular bands.
One of the few times he’s allowed himself to be photographed while off duty in recent years was while mourning: in 2017, outside St Mary’s Cathedral in Sydney, he carried his brother Malcolm’s favourite guitar – nicknamed The Beast – to a hearse in public view.
With hindsight, that was a remarkable scene. Not just because of its ordinariness – a man mourning his older brother, with whom he built one of the most innovative, successful and enduring bands of all time – but because of its vulnerability.
The world’s most famous schoolboy was, at that moment, just another person in a suit deeply missing someone at a funeral, like we’ve all been before and we all will be again.
Up on stage at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on Wednesday night, though, Angus looked like he’s never lost anyone and never will, because he and his Gibson SG are immortal. Both of these objects looked like they will continue conducting amplified guitar chords forevermore.
At the beginning of its first Australian tour in a decade, his band played to about 80,000 people, many of them wearing its signature merchandise item of the glowing red devils’ horns, which flashed across the vast expanse of the MCG en masse in those rare moments of darkness and quietude amid a compelling 140-minute set.
Like fellow veterans The Rolling Stones, AC/DC has fallen into the uncanny valley of being a living nostalgia act. Both groups continue to write and record music; for the latter, most recently with Power Up, its 17th album, issued in 2020. But as far as most people are concerned, both bands’ musical output – and their live setlists – were long ago encased in amber, like the mosquito in Jurassic Park.
Back in those good old days, AC/DC’s fans were young and vital; their bodies felt invincible, they could bounce back quickly the morning after necking a dozen beers, and their minds were lit up with dreams and possibilities.
Such is life for a band that formed in Sydney in 1973 and has thus been strutting its stuff for more than five decades. Those old enough to remember its early album releases and tours now face the reality of creaky joints and sore backs from too long spent standing on the stadium floor.
Perhaps a few in attendance could recall what happened when its Back in Black tour played in Melbourne at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl across two nights in February 1981, when there were apparently almost as many people drunk on the park lawns outside the venue as there were inside.
As Jesse Fink recorded in his 2013 book The Youngs – The Brothers Who Built AC/DC: “Police were injured, emergency rooms were overrun, trains and trees were trashed, noise complaints were lodged, 100 people were arrested, and there was talk the bowl would never host a rock concert again.”
There was little of that sort of misbehaviour evident this time around, and instead a feeling of harmony wafted across the crowd, blending nicely with pockets of cannabis smoke and giddy joy at what we all were witnessing.
The best concerts concoct a suspension of disbelief, where whatever’s happening outside the venue shrinks in importance, as the sound and light pouring forth from the stage becomes the focus for two hours or more.
So it was on Wednesday, when this mighty Australian band once again planted its flag into the earth where its members first began playing music together.
Of that membership, only Angus endures, having lost his elder brother and co-founder to dementia eight years ago. The band’s longtime singer Brian Johnson has had the microphone in his hand since 1980, while Angus’ nephew Stevie Young first filled in on rhythm guitar in 1988 when Malcolm stood down to get on top of his drinking; Stevie became a full-time member in 2014.
After the band returned to stage in 2023 for its first show in seven years, this trio has been completed by an American rhythm section composed of drummer Matt Laug and bassist Chris Chaney. As a unit, this quintet rocks, rolls and swings in all the right places, with a late-set highlight of Riff Raff – from 1978’s brilliant Powerage – showcasing all of their abilities, both as individual players and as a whole.
At 78, Johnson has the hardest job on stage: having sung in a high register since his 1980 AC/DC debut, Back in Black, he is forever chasing his tail as a vocalist, with unavoidably diminishing returns. His performance on Wednesday was serviceable and workmanlike without truly impressing, but if you’re looking for vocal perfection from this band in the live arena, you probably stopped looking a long time ago.
Instead, it’s better to step back and appreciate this tour for what it is: one of the world’s greatest bands proving its ongoing vitality while also proving its doubters wrong.
At the same time, it’s challenging the generations of younger performers inspired by its timeless work to either match or better what this band continues to offer after 52 years of music-making. That’s a tall order indeed.
With Angus in charge of every aspect of this Power Up world tour, there’s no chance that AC/DC would be playing to anyone, anywhere if the schoolboy didn’t think it was up to scratch.
His unrelenting high standards – learned from Malcolm, and since adopted in his absence – simply would not allow for this act to falter, nor take a dip in quality.
Behind and above the quintet was a breathtakingly large stage set up packed with more production lights and speaker rigging than seems sane or reasonable; according to the promoter TEG Van Egmond, it is composed of about 300 tonnes of steel and 28 tonnes of speakers, all assembled by 155 crew members.
As a spectacle, this concert delivered from its opening number, If You Want Blood (You’ve Got It), which was casually followed by Back in Black, one of the greatest rock ‘n’ roll songs of all time. Hearing a tight band perform this track perfectly was worth the price of admission alone, as Laug swung just like Phil Rudd did when recording his brilliant drum part, while the Youngs chopped and chimed their parts and Johnson let rip.
After the opening barrage, Angus shed his schoolboy blazer and cap to reveal a white shirt, striped tie, red shorts, white socks and black shoes. His silver hair flowed as he plucked and prodded at his instrument like a curious science student. How many 70-year-olds are willing to show their knees on a stage of any size, let alone before 80,000 people?
Amid another Powerage highlight, Sin City, he removed his tie and found a microphone to utter a few words – “And snakes / Snakes take …” – in the middle eight.
But for an overhead camera shown on the big screens that captured the hint of a smile on his face as he ran toward his bandmates to end Stiff Upper Lip, the world’s oldest schoolboy also appeared to be its most stoic. But this, too, was an act, as the guitarist feigned disinterest while inwardly revelling in our adulation, remaining impassive even while theatrically cupping his hands to his ears to prompt stadium-wide cheers.
In a major surprise, the band aired Jailbreak for the first time since 1991; it was one of few tracks to feature the three rhythm players on the big screens, with most of the cameras’ focus falling on the lead guitarist and the singer. By the end of Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap, Angus’ white shirt was unbuttoned and drenched in sweat. How many 70-year-olds are willing to show off their midriffs on stage?
Near the end of the 22-song setlist, while conducting the band by stomping his feet to prompt the final chord flourishes of Whole Lotta Rosie, Angus was in his element, caught in a rush of superb showmanship. More than just about any other performer, it’s clear that playing live to big crowds gives this man life, pleasure and a purpose. It seems as though he’ll do it as long as he’s able.
During the extended set closer Let There Be Rock, while standing in the front section, I watched as some intergenerational male bonding took place in front of me: a white-haired father, his young sons and their mates were all playing air guitar and jumping around with abandon while sporting matching T-shirts bearing the headliner’s indelible name.
Angus was on stage shredding a long and intricate guitar solo, but the real action was in that scrum of blokes who together occupied the space created by this band back in 1973 that endures today.
Just as this music gives life to AC/DC’s sole surviving founder, so it does to the tens of thousands who habitually gather in their masses whenever he and his bandmates plug in. Long may they.
AC/DC’s Power Up tour continues in Melbourne (Sunday), followed by Sydney (November 21 + 25), Adelaide (Nov 30), Perth (December 4 + 8) and Brisbane (Dec 14 + 18).
Love culture? Sign up to our free newsletter for all the essential shows, compelling books, must-see films, and live performances that you need to know about here.
More Coverage
To join the conversation, please log in. Don't have an account? Register
Join the conversation, you are commenting as Logout