Its London or bust for Axl/DC.
“Good afternoon, London…..”
Let’s consider that sentence for a while.
Its 8.20 at night and the band have just played their second song. The man saying it is one William Bailey, known to everyone as Axl Rose. You may have seen some stuff about him recently?
Whatever happened between Brian Johnson and the rest of AC/DC frankly is none of our business, but when they announced that Axl Rose was to be the lead singer of the band, you would have thought they’d just appointed Ed Sheeran to do the job such was the hysteria and vitriol that was reserved for the choice. Instead they had picked a man who could play rock n roll in stadiums any day of any week.
So here are the theories:
He can’t sing, apparently. Errr yeah ok, he was the singer on arguably the greatest hard rock record ever made. Next.
He’ll be late. Errr, no, they were bang on time.
He is the wrong man for the band…. we’ll see.
So yeah, as sarcastic as he ever was: “Good afternoon London” was rather more loaded than it might have been.
And you know what, it takes all of about 15 seconds of the opener to debunk all this froth and nonsense: The “Rock Or Bust” album might have patchy, but the title track is awesome, and it contains these lines at its start: “We be a guitar band/we play across the land/You hear the guitar sound/Playin’ nice and loud/Rock you to your knees/Gonna make your destiny/In rock we trust, it’s rock or bust.
And maybe we shouldn’t ever doubt it, because for the next two and a quarter hours, AC/DC ruled the world once more.
Look, it’s not the same band, of course it’s not, but then you could say the same about the time after Bon Scott died and Brian Johnson took over, Malcolm Young isn’t there either, but then as long as you have Angus and his school uniform then surely the heart of AC/C is still beating.
Then there’s the setlist: no hard rock band in the history of the world can match it – and plenty have tried. “Shoot To Thrill”, “Back In Black” and all the others. There’s a moment during in “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap” where 50,000 ish fists go up in the air and all the idea that this band is done is the most stupid thing ever heard.
The great songs just keep coming too. “Hell’s Bells”, an awesome “Thunderstruck” and one called “You Shook Me All Night Long” that might just be the best of them all. Hell, even Rose appears humble just for a second when he introduces “Whole Lotta Rosie” with obvious affection.
As ever, the set ends with “Let There Be Rock” and Angus duck walking his way round the place for about ten minutes, on top of speakers, on the floor and glitter cannons at the ready, before the small matter of an encore that includes “Highway To Hell” and is played to thousands of people with flashing devil horns on their heads.
Then, after “Riff Raff” the big guns are wheeled out – literally – and the 21-gun salute of “For Those About To Rock” is as thrilling as ever.
How long this band has, only Angus really knows – and let’s face it no one in the band is getting any younger – but tonight rather made a mockery of those who proclaimed to know better.
But then, the singer of the best hard rock band of the last thirty years fronting the best one ever? Yeah, always gonna be disaster, right? Don’t listen to the internet, just revel in the music, because tonight was brilliant.
In rock – and AC/DC – we trust.
