(Credits: Far Out / Marcel Antonisse / Anefo)
Thu 1 January 2026 16:18, UK
Keith Richards has given so much of his life to The Rolling Stones that it is little wonder he hasn’t had much time to enjoy anyone else.
He’s the hard-nosed leader of the gang, and he’s never shown any soppy weaknesses, such as liking The Beatles, The Band, Prince, The Bee Gees, or almost anyone bar the devil man himself, Robert Johnson, for that matter. Disdain for their rivals has been a core tenet of the Stones, giving them a grovelling grittiness in the often overly chummy clique of pop culture.
However, there was one band that the Stones met up with on tour and even the acerbic Keef couldn’t help loving. While Prince might not have worked out as a supporting act, with Richards eventually dubbing him an “overrated midget”, he was charmed no end by the Australian rockers AC/DC when they met onstage in Sydney. Their simplicity and power appealed to Richards, who has always championed feel over flashy complexity.
Ahead of three massive shows down under in 2002, Richards cooked up the cunning plan to invite a couple of Australia’s favourite sons over to rehearsal. Angus and Malcolm Young duly accepted the offer. Thereafter, they not only endeared themselves with their similar laissez-faire attitude but also the magnetism of their dualling guitar work.
“Being a guitar player is one thing, being a guitar player with another guitar player, it’s to the power of. It’s not two guitars, it becomes five, six, ten,” Richards said. This taps into what Richards sees as the magic of modern rock ‘n’ roll, writing in his memoir, “There’s something beautifully friendly and elevating about a bunch of guys playing music together.”
A blissed-out young Keith Richards. (Credits: Far Out / Alamy)
He continues, “This wonderful little world that is unassailable. It’s really teamwork, one guy supporting the others, and it’s all for one purpose, and there’s no flies in the ointment, for a while.” The budding, exuberant nature of AC/DC embodies that. They’re just out there jamming for kicks.
The Rolling Stones rocker claimed that the duo nailed this cohesive power and the alchemy that can be borne from it. Richards himself has always held this as paramount whether he’s been playing with Ron Wood, Mick Taylor, Brian Jones or anyone else who has dared to resonate with him.
He ascribed this attitude as the triumph at the heart of AC/DC, commenting on the Four Licks tour DVD: “There are bands that you can’t tell who is doing what. Angus and Malcolm, in a way, you know Angus gonna play the leads, but their tightness is always impressive.” Their as close-knit as anyone in rock for that matter.
But it wasn’t just the dates Down Under that made this clear to Keef. He had admired them on the festival circuit for years and years, with Charlie Watts adding: “They’re great at festivals, they are probably the best at it, I think. I know Keith has always liked AC/DC.” Seeing them first-hand only heightened the appeal. “Bless their hearts; they are great little bundle of energy,” Richards agreed.
But what did Angus Young make of the Stones?
Sadly, Angus Young wasn’t quite so complimentary in return. Dishing out a dose of Richards’ usual medicine, he told Classic Rock several years ago that he’d “yawn [his] head off” if he had to sit through a Rolling Stones concert. “The Rolling Stones get up and play soul music these days, and this is supposed to be rock ‘n’ roll. Leave that to the people who do it best,” he said. The people who played it best, in his view, were the progenitors “Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, Little Richard”.
While he admired the days when the band stuck closely to the blues-adjacent pioneers, he had little time for the ‘expansion’ of their sound that soon followed. “They must have progressed the wrong way,” he cuttingly commented.
Continuing, “I’ll tell you when it stopped getting’ good – when The Rolling Stones put out ‘Jumpin’ Jack Flash’ and ‘Street Fighting Man’. Past that, there’s nothing.” Perhaps this is why he’s never looked to ‘progress’ all that much with AC/DC, once joking, “A lot of people say that we make the same album eleven times. And really, they’re lying. It’s actually been 12 times.”
Sorry, Keith, the joint cover of ‘Rock Me Baby’ might have set Sydney ablaze, but the feeling of glowing admiration is not mutual. It might have been had you called it quits in the ‘60s, but the later stuff isn’t cutting it for the Aussie lad in an ill-fitting school uniform.
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