The last time AC/DC toured the UK eight years ago, the mighty Antipodean hard-rockers, led by school uniform-wearing lead guitarist Angus Young, were on the ropes. Not only had Young’s talismanic guitar-riffing brother Malcolm withdrawn, suffering from dementia, but drummer Phil Rudd had been sentenced to home detention on charges of drug possession and threatening to kill.
Their singer, Brian Johnson, meanwhile, was suffering from hearing problems after 35 years of fronting one of the world’s loudest bands. Even without three key players, however, the ensuing Rock Or Bust tour garnered rave notices, thanks to star-turn supersub Axl Rose from Guns N’ Roses.
In the interim, Malcolm Young passed away, to be replaced by his nephew Stevie, and Johnson, Rudd and bassist Cliff Williams all returned for 2020’s PWR/UP album. Touring it four years on, “Acca Dacca” rolled back into Wembley Stadium, without Malcolm, without that long-serving rhythm section, and the patched-together line-up put in a creaky performance which carried little of the excitement, joy or groove which made the band so electrifying in earlier years.
Make no mistake, it was properly loud. Behind Stevie Young stood a wall of 27 Marshall amplifiers, and the PA was equally ear-damaging, yet it only seemed to broadcast the band’s failing powers.
“You’re a sight for sore eyes,” muttered Johnson, already hoarse after the opening If You Want Blood (You’ve Got It). The knockabout Geordie is often daubed as the luckiest man in rock, after replacing late vocalist Bon Scott in 1980, just as the band were set to peak with Back in Black – with his screechy voicing, it went on to become the second biggest-selling album ever, after Michael Jackson’s Thriller.
As they launched into Back in Black, it became clear that, for tonight at least, Johnson’s screech had all but deserted him. Now 76, he wheezed, huffed and croaked, bereft of the high notes which impart the soaring thrill in AC/DC’s music. Repeatedly, he held out his mic for the audience to fill in for him.
Even after a succession of Back in Black cuts, the mood in Wembley’s vast basin was alarmingly flat, only warming up for a clap-along during Shoot to Thrill. Young, 69, a Catweazle thatch of white hair protruding from beneath his burgundy cap, gamely duck-walked down the proscenium, and during Sin City vigorously wiped his tie along his fretboard, However, 1970s classics such as High Voltage and Riff Raff trundled along with half their original force.
It started to feel like a stadium show from a bygone age, with none of the hi-tech pizzazz you’d get from, say, Metallica, and for the climactic Let There Be Rock, Young played a solo for a full 20 minutes – hardly a treat.
Unlike the octogenarian Rolling Stones, who have found a way to play on through their fading technical abilities, this was grim, and rather depressing. As a lifelong fan, it pains me to say: AC/DC continuing in this format is a travesty – a schoolboy error, indeed.
AC/DC play Wembley Stadium again on Sunday July 7. Info: acdc.com
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