News & Observer | newsobserver.com | 2008 NCAA Men's Bracket

Legendary Australian metal band AC/DC has released dates for this fall's U.S. tour -- and it's yet another big tour bypassing the Triangle for points west. At this point, the closest date is Dec. 18 in Charlotte.

Now I wouldn't say I'm a gigantic fan; but I would say that AC/DC puts on a show that's about the most stupid fun I've ever had. As an example of what we'll be missing, below is the review from last time they played the Triangle.

Still loud after all these years
By David Menconi, News & Observer
April 3, 2001

Raleigh -- And here you thought dinosaurs were extinct. Yes, most of them did die off about a hundred million years ago. But one surviving specimen of Metallicus Extincticus still roams the Earth, crushing every eardrum in its path: AC/DC, the legendary Australian quintet that played the Raleigh Entertainment & Sports Arena on Sunday night.

In a career going on 30 years, AC/DC has survived disco, punk, new wave, hip-hop, grunge, electronica and teen pop, all without changing hardly a whit. The band that time forgot, AC/DC is the Energizer dinosaur -- and still the loudest, meanest, biggest T. Rex on the block. Hey, evolution's for sissies.

AC/DC has also survived something that would be a killing blow to most bands, the death of its original lead singer, Bon Scott, who died in 1980. But in AC/DC's case, the front man matters little because the star of the show has always been guitarist Angus Young.

Sunday's show began with Young running onstage in his trademark schoolboy get-up, bowing and doffing his cap. Then he straightened up and set to work, and basically didn't stop for the next two hours. He wielded his Gibson SG guitar like a piece of heavy artillery, with similar results. By the end of the night, it felt as if the crowd had been on the business end of a pre-invasion barrage.

Young turned 46 on Saturday, but you'd have never known it from his performance. He put in at least a mile or two just running back and forth across the stage and duckwalking into the crowd on the catwalk, riffing away at ear-splitting volume all the while.

Midshow, he took off his guitar long enough to perform a striptease, dropping his shorts to reveal U.S. flag underpants. And then he played on, shirtless, resembling a diminutive, demented caveman as he sent out one pulverizing salvo after another.

The rest of the band played fine, though it was difficult to pay attention to much besides the lead guitar. Young's brother Malcolm provided complementary rhythm guitar, the rhythm section kept things moving in an orderly fashion, and singer Brian Johnson did as well as he could, given that his voice is just gone. A shadow of its former self, Johnson's raspy shriek just doesn't pack the power it did 20 years ago.

Not that anyone noticed, of course. The 20-song set kicked off with "You Shook Me All Night Long," one of several numbers played with the house lights up to encourage audience singalongs (the better to cover for Johnson).

As usual, AC/DC went all out with the props. Dominating the stage was a 40-foot-high statue of Young in his schoolboy get-up, apparently modeled on the cover of last year's "Stiff Upper Lip" album. Except this one had retractable horns, eyes that lit up and a mouth that issued smoke every now and then. Other songs featured flames, a large inflatable doll, a bell and goofy video footage.

Musically, AC/DC is the essence of simplicity. Most of the group's songs are built on simple blues riffs, run through the Australian outback and cranked up to 11. As for subject matter, the group rarely ventures beyond songs about rock 'n' roll or gettin' it on, laced with the sort of double entendres that used to make "Beavis & Butt-Head" snicker ("Huh, huh, he just said 'Hard as a Rock'").

It really is perfect arena-rock fodder, because every song has a textbook Big Rock Ending. AC/DC could play any 20 of its songs in any order and probably get more or less the same effect. Highlights of this particular set included "Rock and Roll Ain't Noise Pollution," "Hells Bells" and "Let There Be Rock," which was loud, fast and hard enough to kill small animals.

Young really went all out on this one, writhing around on a platform above the audience and turning circles as he played. After that, the encore closer -- "For Those About to Rock (We Salute You)," complete with a line of cannons going off -- was icing on the cake.

Opening act Sinomatic (a late replacement for Slash's Snakepit) apparently read the handbook on how to survive an opener slot when nobody has a clue who you are. The group dropped AC/DC's name as often as possible; kept the between-song pauses brief; and did a few covers, working in The Cult's "Love Removal Machine" and Prince's "Darling Nikki." The opener's 40 minutes went by relatively painlessly.