AC\/DC<\/a> no longer plays live, retired out of respect to Scott after his death in 1980. But you barely notice it is missing when their live shows are this stuffed with classics: an audible thrill ripples through the 80,000 punters in Melbourne Cricket Ground when AC\/DC opens with If You Want Blood (You\u2019ve Got It) then tears straight into Back in Black. Who else could play such a huge hit so early in a show? But Accadacca can, in what is essentially a greatest hits celebration that goes for more than two hours.<\/p>\nBrian Johnson calls Melbourne AC\/DC\u2019s \u2018ancestral homeland\u2019. Photograph: Morgan Hancock\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s address the elephants in the room: yes, Brian Johnson is 78 and, no, his voice can\u2019t reach the heights or hold out as long as it did in the 1980s. He can\u2019t screech as he once could on songs like High Voltage or Highway to Hell, but he sure gives it a go with a smile on his face. Johnson was forced to leave AC\/DC\u2019s 2016 world tour because of severe hearing loss (Axl Rose stepped in) but a fix was found and you can tell he\u2019s happy to be back, cackling like a gremlin between songs. (Accadacca doesn\u2019t do stage banter, and no one minds.)<\/p>\n
Likewise, Angus Young \u2013 still wearing his schoolboy shorts at 70 \u2013 is noticeably slower on certain early tracks, including the frenetic opening to Thunderstruck. But it is still Thunderstruck, and who cares when a whole stadium is singing that loudly, that joyfully, as one?<\/p>\n
With his shock of white hair and skinny legs poking out of his shorts, Young simultaneously looks like an ancient wizard and confusingly childlike; when he trots back to the band at the end of a song, he looks like a lost little boy running for his parents \u2013 until he launches into a frenzied solo, his fingers moving almost too fast to see. He can still duckwalk the length of a huge stage, wild-eyed and juddering around as though he\u2019s been electrocuted.<\/p>\n
\u2018The rest of the band fades away as Young struts.\u2019 Photograph: Morgan Hancock\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
He slowly loses clothes during the set, even using his tie like a violin bow to play his guitar. By the end, when his shirt is almost completely unbuttoned, he\u2019s in charge of the whole show.<\/p>\n
On Let There Be Rock, Young launches into a lengthy, indulgent and hugely entertaining guitar solo that almost feels like a challenge to any who thought AC\/DC weren\u2019t still up to it. The rest of the band fades away as Young struts, taking breaks only to revel in the cheers before throwing himself on the floor and rolling around like a man possessed. \u201cWhere did that come from?\u201d Johnson asks afterwards; who could say?<\/p>\n
Johnson and Young are our ringleaders but they have tight support in the rhythm guitar of Stevie Young, who officially came onboard in 2014 after his uncle Malcolm was diagnosed with dementia; as well as the bassist, Chris Chaney, and the drummer, Matt Laug, who plays with the determination of a man trying to trigger an earthquake. Your eardrums won\u2019t be the same again.<\/p>\n
![\"Watch](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/1763021470_827_1440.jpg\")
Watch 374 bagpipe players break a world record with AC\/DC tribute \u2013 video <\/p>\n
Though the tour is named for the 17th album Power Up<\/a>, released in 2020, they only play one song from it. Instead, we get the best of rest: Shoot to Thrill, High Voltage, Highway to Hell, You Shook Me All Night Long, Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap, TNT and Whole Lotta Rosie. There\u2019s even room for a surprise with Jailbreak, a song they have not played live since 1991, which is welcomed with huge enthusiasm.<\/p>\nThis is AC\/DC\u2019s first show in Australia in 10 years and Melbourne is their first stop \u2013 after all, it is the band\u2019s \u201cancestral homeland\u201d, as Johnson puts it, being \u201cthe home of Mr Scott\u201d. It\u2019s hard not to suspect this may be the band\u2019s last world tour, and maybe even their last trip to the homeland \u2013 but what a thrilling spectacle it is if you can get a ticket. They rock and we salute them.<\/p>\n
AC\/DC are playing the MCG again on 16 November, then Sydney\u2019s Accor Stadium 21 and 25 November, Adelaide 30 November, Perth 4 and 8 December and Brisbane 14 and 18 December<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On Wednesday afternoon, 374 bagpipers gathered in Melbourne\u2019s Federation Square to play AC\/DC\u2019s It\u2019s a Long Way to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":288751,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[88,216],"class_list":{"0":"post-288750","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-music"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288750","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=288750"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288750\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/288751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=288750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=288750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=288750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}