Oy! Age means nothing when AC/DC rides the 'Rock 'n' Roll' train

BY CASEY TONER

Age be darned, you just can't say AC/DC lacks enthusiasm.

The classic rockers, older but very much still alive and rocking, brought their testosterone-fueled brand of booze, blues chops and power chords to the Allstate Arena Thursday night.

Opening the show with a brief cartoon, animated versions of the band members rode inside a speeding locomotive with an impish Angus Young shoveling coal in the train's furnace. Young morphs into Satan (briefly) before pulling two buxom, blond young women to his chest.

As the cartoon came to an end, the actual band members - Young (clad in his schoolboy prep attire), Malcolm Young, Brian Johnson, Cliff Williams and Phil Rudd - took to the stage.

Playing in front of an over-sized locomotive set piece, AC/DC plowed through "Rock 'n' Roll Train," one of the stronger titles off their new CD "Black Ice."

It's good to know that unlike other maturing rock stars, AC/DC makes age look like its prisoner. Perhaps it's because the band doesn't cater to pretension or coolness (it never did), preferring to focus on rocking out and melting faces with guitar solos.

Take Angus, for example. The paper-white tone of his skin coupled the thinning, strands of hair on his head give the undersized Scottish ax-man a ghoulish, waxy glow.

Oddly enough, the cadaver-thing works well for him. Considering that he plays songs titled "Dirty Deeds" and "Shoot to Thrill," Angus' look fits the part. As if to say "I may be old, but what I lack in youth/looks, this old bag of bones makes up in earnestness and panache!"

Anchoring the early part of the set was the pummeling "T.N.T." Steered by crowd swelling chants of "Oy!" Angus took the orange, eerily Halloweenish spotlight from frog-throated singer Brian Johnson and peeled back a guitar solo from what felt like 30 years ago.

AC/DC eventually worked its way into a bluesy jam before Angus took center stage again, stripping down to his shorts and then to his underwear, revealing a pair of AC/DC-stamped boxers.

The paraphernalia-fest continued into "Hell's Bells," which triggered a giant AC/DC-labeled bell to descend from the ceiling. Johnson jumped on the gym-rope chime, flailing around as the bell lifted him off his feet.

AC/DC encored with "Highway to Hell," and then closed out their set with the rollicking "For Those About to Rock (We Salute You)."

During the course of these two songs, there was, of course, a massive amount of shredding and superfluous display of the AC/DC logo.

Fully engaged in his trademark wail, Johnson's veiny throat looked as if it was going to pop during "For Those About to Rock." The song was bolstered by even more shredding and the sudden appearance of cannons, which boomed and burst in perfect disharmony with the rest of the ear-splitting noise.

Source www.southtownstar.com