AC/DC - Black Ice

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The night before Angus' birthday the band threw a bash at The Sydney Lifesaver. Apparently he ended up drunk for the first and only time, and ended up doing his strip and moonie routine for the first time. Apparently on the bar the rest of the band decided that that should remain as part of the show from then on (no wonder Angus does not drink).

The band flew to Britain on the 1st April. Michael Browning went round London with a portable video player, to generate interest from agencies and record companies. Punk was just about to break out in the UK, but at the time the scene was mainly dominated by Glam and Disco. Also at first, AC/DC had to compete with the bands at the Pub Rock circuit and despite any hype the media tried to cook up. AC/DC bore no animosity to any of their contempories on the rare nights that they themselves were not playing.

"It's A Long Way To The Top" was released in theUK. At first the band were to have played as support to Back Street Crawler, but the death of Paul Kossoff meant that they would not actually support them untill May when they found a replacement guitarist , so untill then AC/DC played a series of gigs starting at The Red Cow, then played their gigs with Back Street Crawler.

Then started the "Lock Up Your Daughters" -Tour, which was sponsored by Sounds magazine , the ticket price was as little as 50p, and the line up included support bands and film shows featuring major names. This tour took the band to all sorts of unlikely venues, including a community hall in Yeovil, where an employee in one of the town's record shops recounted having a few drinks with Bon. Some of these gigs were drastically undersubscribed, apparently only 5 people turned up for the gig at Swansea, but good deal of the people who went to see the band in those early days ended up hooked. By the time they got to Scotland, the press there were comparing Bon to Alex Harvey (somebody who is still worth checking out if you are a more Bon Scott orientated fan) though, the band did meet with some difficulties when they reached Glasgow, an over enthusiastic audience. Officials at the venue asked Bon to tell the crowd to sit down, but did they take any notice? No. Seats and bodies went flying through the air as the boisterous crowd threatened to demolish the place. The tour finished at the Lyceum in London with a "best dressed Schoolgirl" -competition.

About this time the band recorded a 20 minute slot for Mike Mansfield's Superpop programme, which went out on London Weekend Televison. This was followed by a European tour, in support of Rainbow, though as one can imagine, there was a clash of egos and AC/DC were dropped as the support act. Then the band moved from their house in Barnes, where they had originally settled, to one in West Brompton.

Starting on July 26th they played a Monday night recidency at The Marquee Club. The audiences were modest to start off with, but as the interest in the band grew so did the audience, until there were over 1,000 people cramming into the venue, which made for hot and sticky summer nights, remember, this was 1976, the year of the big heatwave. (we managed to re-create something of what it must have been like at the gig we organised with AB/CD in Hawick in 1997, several people commented that, close your eyes and it could be 1976 again, now, that was one sweaty night) Anyway again one eyewitness recounted having a chat and few drinks with Bon.

Then there was Reading featival, they played on the Sunday in a line up with Brand X, Ted Nugent, Sutherland Brothers, Quiver, Black Oak Arkansas and Osibisa, though unfortunately for AC/DC they were largerly ignored, gerally due to the fact that a good deal of the patrons at Reading at the time were fans of the more staid "stadium" rock that the punk movement at the time was railing against. High Voltage was released in US in anticipation of a tour there, but they never made it until the next year. At this time aswell, the second version of Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap was released in the UK, this was an compilation of the tracks on the Australian versions of Dirty Deeds and TNT.

The band went on another UK tour, starting on the 27th October. This was dogged with countroversy, they were banned from playing Oxford Polytechnic for songs containing "cheap references to both sexes". The audiences were rowdy in Glasgow and Liverpool, and in both cases, the band were threatened with arrest, but rowdy audiences aside, by the time they played their last gigs at the Hammersmith Odeon, there was proof that they were building a fanatical following, as a conciderable number of fans had made the effort to dress up as schoolkids (there was not much available in the way of teeshirts etc back then) Also the more serious press was beginning to take note with reviews in the broadsheet newspapers. The band returned to Australia to amid controversy.

For some reason a minister in the Australian parliament decided to publicly denounce the band, which resulted in them becoming a scapegoat for the Australian media. It was probably not so much anything that AC/DC themselves had done, but they were being singled out and made an example of by the older generations dissaproving at the increasing number of rock bands doing the rounds. They played their first gig at the Australian tour on Tuesday December 7th. At many of the venues, Angus was threatened with arrest if he pulled a moonie. The band were actually being followed around by a TV documentary crew, who were hoping to catch the band doing on a raping and pillaging spree, sure there were a few groupies about, but nothing out of the ordinary went on. The band were supported by Stars and Punkz, and although the band's and the audiences were well behaved, a planned concert at Tamworth was cancelled by the town's mayor, and a number of religious orientated radio stations refused to play their records. Supported by the Saints, AC/DC played right up to the end of the year.

-Nikki Goff

BON'S LAST PERFORMANCE
(Electric Outlaws Fanzine NO: 22)

One week, about 10 days before the death of Bon Scott, AC/DC were recording a programme for Spanish TV. AC/DC were not very popular in Spain those days, and they were promoting the album at the end of the Highway To Hell tour. The success of this album around the world, resulted in all the band's albums being re-issued in January 1980, so on the 9th February the band arrived in Madrid, to appear on a music programme called APLAUSO. For this show they recorded two songs, Highway To Hell and Touch Too Much, with only the latter actually being shown. Apparently Aplauso was a ridiculous show, featuring mostly pop and folk music, which as what the Spanish public listened to at the time.

The presenter of the programme, Jose Luis Fradejas, announced the band as the new promise of rock music. The band were not happy as they had to wait for hours to record the show. Next day, the 10th February, there was a press conference and apparently Bon arrived 'a little drunk' (as the reports go) but Malcolm had something to say about the groups of the moment.

Q: What do you think of the Ramones?
M: Ramones?... Yuck.

Q: What do you think of Led Zeppelin?
M: Oh! Good long ago but... now are too old to play.

Q: And Foreigner?
M: They aren't original, play same as us.

The show was broadcast and the Saturday week after was the announcement of Bon Scott's death. Quite a few Spanish fans remember this programme and everybody is sure that this is his last TV appearance.

-Manuel Biondi.