AC/DC brings high voltage rock ’n’ roll hits to the masses at the Rose Bowl
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Precious few bands can fill a stadium 52 years into their career — let alone play to an audience heavily populated by parents and their children, both generations sporting red devil horn headbands and cheering for 77-year-old singer Brian Johnson and white-haired guitar icon Angus Young, 70.
But AC/DC did just that, playing 21 instantly recognizable sing-along tunes of considerable heaviness — the majority of them classic rock radio staples and cultural touchstones — rendered with a power and passion that belies their many decades of service. Kicking off with 1978’s “If You Want Blood (You’ve Got It),” Young, in his trademark schoolboy outfit (red velvet for this show) with the recognizable black and white Gibson SG, took the stage to thunderous appreciation.
Next was “Back in Black,” the song and album that marked Johnson’s 1980 entrée to the lineup. The frontman proved expressive and animated despite serious hearing issues that sidelined him for a few scary years, and a voice that, understandably, doesn’t always have the sustain and power of earlier days. The quintet played a few tracks from their latest, 2020’s “Power Up,” but as expected and appreciated, the hits ruled, from “Shot Down in Flames” to “Hells Bells” to latter-day crowd favorite “Thunderstruck.”
The band’s set, despite the relentless, strident perfection and power of the rhythm section, wasn’t a quick flow, with fairly frequent darkened-stage breaks between songs. The second half of the two-hour-plus performance proved the stronger — Johnson’s energy seemingly renewed on this third show of 13 for this leg of the Power Up tour.
The band’s hardcore devotees may wonder if AC/DC may be slightly callous or merely driven, as their career suggests. Other fans don’t know or care about the lineup’s backstory, which took its first devastating turn in February 1980 with the death of singer Bon Scott, 33. In less than six months, with new frontman Johnson, previously of Brit band Geordie, AC/DC released what would become one of the best-selling albums in history, “Back in Black,” their first of 11 LPs (to date) with Johnson.
Like a Dickensian Andy Capp, Johnson is an uber-charming rogue, an everyman bluesy belter whose winking humor with a hint of the scoundrel are not entirely unlike Scott’s demeanor, though each man’s vocals, inflection and stage presence are/were clearly their own. And beloved as such.
However, on Feb. 28, 2016, in the midst of AC/DC’s Rock or Bust tour, doctors told Johnson that if he didn’t stop performing immediately, he risked total hearing loss. By May 17, 2016, Guns N’ Roses frontman Axl Rose joined AC/DC as a fill-in vocalist for two dozen shows, a move that shocked many and thrilled others. Seemingly nothing will stop the juggernaut that is AC/DC. They’re at once a band of brothers, literally — founded by Angus and late brother Malcolm Young — but also not. As the middle-aged concertgoer next to me noted: “Angus is all about the money and he and his brother [Malcom] own the band.” That said, it was the fan’s 10th show across several continents, though he purposely avoided seeing the Rose-fronted version of AC/DC.
Johnson, his hearing issues managed, was back in the fold by 2019, and post-pandemic, playing live with AC/DC by October 2023. Interestingly, one of the other bands still filling stadiums is indeed Guns N’ Roses. Even more titillating: Rose and guitarist Slash, the Johnson and Young of American rock, were in attendance at the Rose Bowl — their walk through the crowd inciting thousands to gasp and crane their necks for a look at the duo.
But all eyes were onstage for the two-hour-plus show. AC/DC have written winking songs about sexually transmitted diseases (“The Jack”); large women (“Whole Lotta Rosie”); voracious encounters (“You Shook Me All Night Long,” “She’s Got Balls”); and of course, Hell (in the abstract). The tunes are all exuberant, and even with a new era of political correctness, never offensive.
Despite any challenges of health and member attrition, AC/DC remain unstoppable and undeniable — Young’s own version of Chuck Berry’s duckwalk proved his preternatural energy, as did his expected and always lengthy (10 minutes? 15?) solo during “Let There Be Rock.”
At least six songs in the set were made infamous by Scott, including “Sin City,” “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap,” “Riff Raff,” “Let There Be Rock” and “Highway to Hell,” but they’re so much a part of the band’s oeuvre it matters not that Johnson has been singing them longer than Scott did. Another constant: AC/DC song titles are frequently convivial lowbrow bon mots — “Have a Drink on Me,” “Hells Bells,” “Stiff Upper Lip” — now so common in the vernacular that AC/DC might have invented the phrases. At this point, who knows; maybe they did.
One valid complaint leveled at the band, is also the (not-so) secret to AC/DC’s strength and continued, deserved worldwide success: they make the same record every time. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. And when things do “break,” they’re quickly fixed. Instead of hoped-for drummer Phil Rudd, rounding out the live lineup are drummer Matt Laug, with the band for two years; and skilled journeyman bassist Chris Chaney of Jane’s Addiction infamy. He replaced Cliff Williams, who first joined AC/DC in 1977. And there are two “Young people” on guitar; Angus and his nephew, Stevie, 68, who replaced his uncle Malcolm in the band in 2014.
So, will AC/DC keep going? Clearly, for as long as they can. It’s what they do. Will audiences, fans young and old, keep showing up? They will. It’s what they do. The world circa 2025 could use two hours of an ear-splitting sing-along with 70,000 like-minded denizens, celebrating the working-class joys of booze, broads and rock ‘n’ roll. AC/DC remain the band to deliver that joyful, bipartisan escapism. As Scott sang (and Johnson never has) on the bagpipe-belter “It’s a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock ‘n’ Roll),” AC/DC indeed hit that top, and remain ensconced there.
AC/DC did their audience a great service in having the Pretty Reckless as openers. Singer Taylor Momsen had a big presence on the massive stage, looking like the Runaways’ Cherie Currie circa ’70s, her voice sultry pitch perfect, her commanding voice as genuine as her positively magnetic stage presence. Overheard from a nearby seat: “I was thoroughly blown away.”
Like AC/DC, the band is guitar-driven and write great songs, their approach the perfect blend between accessible rock with the danger, volume and power of metal. It’s a shame AC/DC are so by-the-book onstage, because a Momsen-Johnson duet would be a pairing for the ages.
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