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Back to roots for AC/DC
By Paul Mulvey
October 23, 2003
Australian rock icons AC/DC have returned to the venue which launched them onto the world stage in a one-night-only show for 5,000 fans in suburban London.
When they played at the Hammersmith Odeon on their first tour outside Australia in 1976, lead singer Bon Scott took the train to the gig and had to buy a ticket to get into the venue after he couldn't get past bouncers.
But when AC/DC last night cut the ribbon for the re-named Hammersmith Apollo's rebirth as a rock venue, the great survivors of heavy rock and roll continued their drive back to smaller crowds.
They played with the Rolling Stones in front of a crowd of 450,000 in Toronto in July, three weeks after performing for 3,000 in Berlin and 1,000 in Munich.
Either way, Angus Young, Malcolm Young, Brian Johnson, Phil Rudd and Cliff Williams had no plans to slow down, 30 years and more than 200 million album sales after AC/DC's first gig at the old Chequers club in Sydney.
"I love every minute of it," said Johnson, the 56-year-old lead singer who joined the band following Scott's death in 1980.
"This year has been a lot of fun and excitement, gigs with the Stones, and doing smaller gigs which I've never done with the boys before.
"We don't have the whole set and all the bangs and whistles, it's just the five boys on stage.
"In a small venue we're a real unit, Malcolm's not 25 yards away, he's just next to me. It's good fun.
"You just go out there and rely on your wits, you've got no tricks."
Angus Young was also revelling in the show being pared back to the bare bones on a plain stage in a small venue, while his brother Malcolm hinted they would play at Sydney's intimate Enmore Theatre on their next tour of Australia.
Small stage doesn't mean a reduced show for Angus, though.
He may have looked like a frail chain smoking 48-year-old in today's pre-concert press conference,but on stage the talismanic lead guitarist has an electric presence and the energy of the schoolboy whose uniform he is still growing into.
He also appreciated the significance of a return to Hammersmith.
"It's a good thing to get back to the small venues and close to the fans, they can see you warts and all," he said.
"London was the first place we came to after Australia. It was make or break when we came here.
"We were discovered over here, we were signed over here. From here we got into Europe and then America.
"When we first came to London we did pubs and clubs and four months after we got here we were headlining at the Hammersmith Odeon.
"It's very important to come back to Hammersmith."
The fans thought so as well, snapping up all tickets in a record four minutes last week.
The Young brothers said they planned giving their worldwide fans plenty more opportunities for record breaking shows.
"We always think there's another song coming, as long as that's there, we'll keep going," Malcolm, 50, said.
"We don't want to be a nostalgic band playing greatest hits."
Angus admitted it was a challenge to keep writing.
"We still think there are good rock and roll songs in us," he said.
"That's the challenge, to keep going, to come up with something that's different and still AC/DC."
They are currently working on a new album after which they would head off on yet another world tour.
www.smh.com.au
AC/DC triumphed at their UK comeback last night (October 21).
Playing to a sold out audience of 5,000 to mark the re-opening of London’s Carling Hammersmith Apollo, the antipodean rock Gods delivered a storming greatest hits set loaded with drama and pyrotechnics.
Highlights of the set included classics like ‘Back In Black’, ‘Hell’s Bells’, ‘Highway To Hell’ and ‘Whole Lotta Rosie’.
During ‘For Those About To Rock (We Salute You)’, the band let rip a series of four cannons lined up at the front of the stage. During ‘The Jack’, Angus Young performed a striptease, stopping only to reveal a pair of union jack underpants.
Historically, the Apollo holds significance for the band. In 1976 they played the Hammersmith Odeon, as it was known then, on their first tour outside Australia. Last night’s NME-endorsed show marked the relaunch of the venue as a standing-room-only venue with double the capacity.
Source www.nme.com
AC/DC
By David Sinclair
AT A press conference before AC/DC’s only show in Britain this year, the group was asked whether they would be performing any new songs. The lead guitarist Angus Young looked aghast. “We’ve been making albums since the Crucifixion,” he replied, “so it’s hard enough to fit in all the ones we’ve already got.”
A band with possibly the most conservative instincts in the history of rock’n’roll who have nevertheless influenced artists from the Beastie Boys to the Darkness, AC/DC were the perfect choice to relaunch the Hammersmith Apollo (née Odeon) as a “serious” rock venue. Having been tempted back on the road to play some dates in Europe with the Rolling Stones, but without a new album to promote, the Anglo-Australian veterans and their sponsors agreed to peg the price of the tickets at £10, a nominal sum for an appearance at a venue that, even at normal prices, they could have sold out ten times over.
An inordinately complicated system involving every recipient of a ticket also having to collect a wristband in person was introduced, apparently to discourage touts. A huge crowd of fans was thus seen queueing outside the Apollo all day, an impressive sight from a distance perhaps, although good will towards the venue was in very short supply by the time most people actually got their noses through the doors.
Once inside, however, they were rewarded with a performance of unlikely magic and unyielding magnificence. Quite how Angus Young, now 48 and balding, still managed to get away with wearing a black satin schoolboy uniform which he stripped off during The Jack to reveal a pair of Union Jack boxer shorts, was a mystery. His tiny brother Malcolm Young, 50 and nowadays a dead ringer for Iggy Pop, kept his clothes on while playing immaculate, tail-gunner guitar behind him. Meanwhile the singer Brian Johnson, 54, in his trademark flat cap, moved around the stage as if carrying a sack of coal on his back, cackling and croaking his way through tales of sexual debauchery and eternal damnation.
The music and the theatrical routines were as unchanging as time itself. Every song began with a monolithic, blues-rock riff and ended like a scene from Battlestar Galactica, drums and guitars exploding, dying and then exploding again in a tableau of carefully choreographed chaos.
A huge bell was lowered from the roof during Hells Bells, its rope dangling like a hangman’s noose, and four sinister cannons, lined up behind the speakers, let off a deafening fusillade during the climax to For Those About to Rock (We Salute You). While venues and their managements come and go, AC/DC endure, more a force of nature than a rock band.
The Times
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well they moved on down