AC/DC - Black Ice

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Atlantic brought in Eddie Kramer, who had worked with Kiss and Jimi Hendrix. Tracks were laid down in Sydney, they went on to record at the famous Electric Ladyland studios in New York, it was here that Angus claimed to commune with the spirit of Mr Hendrix. Apparently the song “If You Want Blood” came about when the band were asked to star in a rock musical about vampires during this period.

They then went on to a very unsatisfactory session in Miami, which Bon has gone down on the record as claiming that the city was like a graveyard, this was before it became a fashionable retreat for those in the film and recording industries. Eventually they decided that Kramer’s approach was way too pop orientated, and replaced him with John (Mutt) Lange, who had an equally long track record working with top bands. Also when he came in as producer, manager Michael Browning was replaced with Peter Mensch. Apparently, behind the scenes there were other management companies pursuing the band. Browning went off to start his own record label in Australia.

Highway To Hell was released in the UK and US on July 27th, and got considerably more airplay than previous efforts. There followed an extensive tour of Europe, mainly concentrating on Germany. Bon still went off and mixed with fans, which was becoming a less sensible thing to do as the venues got bigger. Stories abound of him been fed less innocuous substances than alcohol, in one case a bottle of aftershave at a party, it was recorded that he had to have his stomach pumped on at least one occasion.

Life doing bigger shows was exponentially more stressful, as the tour trailed on into US, disaster hit their gig in Cleveland, Ohio. A disturbance broke out, a gunman ran amok in the crowd shooting two, one of which later died. Over 300 police had to be brought in to quell fighting in the 60 000 strong crowd. Asked about this incident later, Bon claimed to have seen nothing, that it was impossible to see beyond the first few rows. Phil was also suffering severely from stress.

There is a book, Singing In The Dark by Barry Taylor, who was a roadie with the band during this time. A good proportion of the book is about the Highway To Hell tour which resulted in him making the decision that he was going to be a Christian missionary.

On August 18th they played a gig with The Who, Nils Lofgren and The Stranglers at Wembley Stadium. This is the concert that went down on record as the world’s loudest. On The Highway To Hell tour the band were supported by Pat Travers, Sammy Hagar, Riot, Blackfoot, Judas Priest and Def Leppard.

Author - Nikki Goff

(Electric Outlaws Fanzine NO: 25)

Christine Turner wrote in response to out mention of the Countdown TV show (Australia 70's-80's), nothing to do with the game show on Channel 4. Though AC/DC did feature recently on BBC2's pop game show Never Mind The Buzzcocks, where celebrity guests had to guess the lyrics to Let's Get It Up for one question. A pretty strange song to start with the first person being a lecherous ocean liner?!

Apparently there is a book about Countdown called "Glad All Over, The Countdown Years 1974-1987" by Peter Wilmoth. According to the book, it was appearing on Countdown that considerably helped AC/DC's rise to fame. Though during the shooting of videos for the show, Angus had a few hairy times, quite literally.

Paul Drane, the video director is quoted: "We put Angus in a cage and dropped him from the ceiling. Angus was in a cage for about 20 minutes without anyone knowing he was there. And he was in a gorilla suit, and when we dropped him into the studio audience, well the kids went berserk."

And when they shot the Jailbreak video in the quarry: "We had a set in a quarry in Melbourne's western suburbs where we could use explosives. Our special effects guy was thrilled because in those days there wasn't a lot of opportunity for that sort of stuff. We built a frame, and we had these controlled explosion things. Part of the set blew up and you can see me in the clip running away. Bon Scott was on the foreground, just before the bit where he got shot. A makeup artist had put some pellets in his back. Nobody got hurt, but Angus who was standing on a rock playing guitar, got a bit of a fright during one of the bangs."

Bon Scott certainly revelled in the publicity that appearing on TV gave him, and laid on the theatricals, much to the appreciation of the young audience. Paul Hester, who was a member of Crowded House made a number of observations of Bon's behaviour: "He would get these expressions like a weight lifter who goes into a pose and gets that crazy look in his mouth. Bon would get it from crouching into the crutch of his jeans and getting a hysterical look on his face."

Ross Wilson has the last word on Bon Scott: "I saw Bon Scott a week before he died. It was at the Station Hotel in Prahan, around Christmas time, he came out of the pub and I was on the other side of the road and said, 'Hi man', and he just sort of looked at me, and kind of wandered off. Then a week later he died in London and I've since realised I've seen people that look on other people - the same thing has happened. I didn't understand at the time, but if you see it a few times you know that they are not going to be here long."

Countdown came to the end of it's run in 1987, with some of the Australian networks running competitive pop shows, the launch of MTV and the fact that as the music in the Australia charts was more increasingly by outside artists who they could not get into the studio. Critics were saying that the show was not trendy enough. Unfortunately, that management at the TV company in an attempt to cut costs, had most of the master tapes for the shows wiped. Apparently some of the more important stuff was rescued.

- Christine Turner