Angus Young - Lead Guitar
Brian Johnson - Lead Vocals
Cliff Williams - Bass
Stevie Young - Rhythm Guitar
Chris Slade - Drums
Supported by: Vintage Trouble
Tickets: £71.50/79.75 /104.50
Promoter: SJM Concerts - Live Nation - DF
Capacity: 72,500
Attendance: 72,500
SOLD OUT
Note: Sold out in less than 60 minutes.
By Chris Neville, Steeple Aston. Oxfordshire:
From the landing on the moon until the final 21 gun salute the band were on top of their game with real fire in their bellies as if they were having to prove themselves all over again, as if it really was 'Rock Or Bust! It was great to hear Sin City and Have A Drink On Me getting an airing. The new material also stood up well along side the tried and tested numbers. Brian looked was on fine form and made it look easy, as for Angus, what can one say except how does he do it after all this time! The engine room was as rock steady as usual with Cliff, Stevie and Chris keeping it all going so that business could carry on as usual. Thanks for a truly great evening of music and showmanship lads. "In Rock We Trust".
By Gavin Dutton, Chester City, Cheshire, UK.:
Just wanna say thanks again to AC/DC for a night my Son won't forget ever & his first Concert too we Salute you & long live AC/DC keep on riding on Boys from Frankie & me your the Best...
By Bert, Belgium:
Londen... Wembley... the expectations were high for this one... We almost didn't make it to Londen (and back) due to Eurotunnel problems. But we made it. When entering Wembley we were stunned by the immense stadium. But an immense stadium has some consequences... The sound was not good. Lots of echo. Worst sound of the shows I've seen. It also wasn't the best performance of the band either. A few mistakes played and Brian totally fucked up shoot to thrill. But the gentlemen he is, he apologized for it. But the Crowd... what can I say. It was insane. Very loud! 2 hours of jumping around, pushing and shoving... It was hard for my 38-year old body :-) After show it was very hard to get on public transport. So we had to walk, hop on and of bus, train, underground... took us 3 hours to get 11 miles to our hotel. But it was a great experience. Wembley is off the bucket list! Next stop: the holy grounds of Dessel, hometown of Graspop Metal Meeting!
By David Gatehouse, Harrogate:
My 42nd AC/DC gig since first seeing the band as a teenager in 1976 and catching ever tour since.
I'll get my gripe out of the way first. How come Paris got two shows and Germany seven or eight, when England, Scotland and Ireland had just three between them?
The guys might have been big in Australia when they launched their bid for global domination from the northern hemisphere, but it was the UK that springboarded them to international superstardom over four or five years - it wasn't overnight - so why can't that be acknowledged with six or seven giant gigs here?
We have huge venues - stadiums and urban parks (Roundhay Park, Leeds, would be ideal) - so come on lads... next year, bring it home and get your backsides around the country!
So, to the Wembley show:
In a nutshell, it just might have been the best I've seen. They just get better as they get older.
Death, dementia, disaster... the sort of setbacks that would destroy a lesser band are just taken in their stride by AC/DC... they seem to feed on adversity. Ludicrous as it sounds, it just seems to make them stronger.
What could be MORE ludicrous than a 60-year-old man in a schoolboy uniform – and a uniform with short trousers at that?
Perhaps a man who has been wearing it onstage since he was eighteen, always strapped into his trademark black Gibson SG guitar and gleefully directing such garish stage props as flashing devil horns, giant church bells, huge inflatable good time girls, heat seeking missiles and batteries of canon.
And yet, it is SO ludicrous that nobody who owns one of the 300 million albums AC/DC has sold since its beginnings, in Sydney, in 1973, or who competes with hundreds of thousands of other fans to secure tickets for each gig on the band’s roughly five-yearly world tours even thinks about it.
What WOULD be ludicrous is if he hit the stage in jeans and sweatshirt.
And well-nigh impossible come to that, for his shorts allow him a freedom of movement that is legendary.
Running from stage left to right and back for two hours, duck walking and rolling around on the floor in circles, the man is whippet lean and as fast and furious as he was in his twenties.
And by golly, he can get a tune out of that banjo. Mr Young peels off solos that make you weep and riffs that demand you shake your stuff.
Reckoned to be the biggest act ever, after The Beatles, AC/DC can now afford to meter out its giant concerts sparingly. Entertaining for more than 40 years, band members have made it on merit and hard work: they don’t have to play the Odeons and Apollos for six nights straight any more. Now, the order of the day is a 100,000 capacity stadium show every three days.
Your correspondent saw them rock several venues in his home territory of Yorkshire to their foundations on annual tours in the 70s and 80s - including the legendary Leeds Queen’s Hall - but the last time they visited was Sheffield, in 2000 and there are just two UK dates on the current world tour.
And so it was that we set off from Harrogate and Leeds down the ‘Highway from Yorkshire’ to worship at the feet of the unlikely 5’2” guitar god and his leathery but almost equally energetic colleagues, at Wembley Stadium.
By the time the performance was due to begin, the shouts for Angus almost matched the decibel levels the band was about to deliver.
Its back catalogue has so many rock classics that, inevitably, many in an audience will always be disappointed that personal favourites aren’t aired. And, while there would be a riot if the setlist didn’t include standards such as ‘Whole Lotta Rosie’, ‘Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap’, ‘High Voltage’, and ‘Highway to Hell’, AC/DC refuses to neglect its new material – and every show includes two or three numbers from its latest album, ‘Rock or Bust’.
And this catchy, high octane release has sold by the shedload worldwide, although nobody but Mrs Young would ever argue that the band isn’t 35 years past its creative peak.
Cheeky Geordie singer, Brian Johnson, who took over vocals when legendary original frontman, Bon Scoot, died in 1980, spends the concert grinning from ear-to-ear and shouting out lyrics with the high-pitched rasp of a chain-smoking Donald Duck.
He clearly enjoys himself as much as the audience and achieves a great rapport with every massive assembly; despite the vast venues, he has an uncanny ability to make you feel he is singing just for you – even if you are at the back of the stadium, up in the gods.
As ever, though, Angus is the star of the show; stripped to the waist and sweating buckets by halfway through the set, he never stops. His appetite for the fray is insatiable and when he’s not actually playing the guitar, he’s swinging it about or exhorting his audience to scream louder.
The band has had some mighty problems lately. Founding member, Malcolm Young (Angus’ big brother) was forced to retire because of dementia, while original drummer, Phil Rudd, had to take a leave of absence because of his erratic behaviour and some colourful criminal charges in New Zealand.
But this is the band that bounced back bigger than ever when its first, beloved singer died; the band that overcame being dropped by its American record label early in its career, replying with the first in a string of acknowledged classic albums, ‘Let There be Rock’.
And so, once again, Mr Young and co have climbed to fresh heights, despite the obstacles of a mischievous fate and are even better live than they ever have been.
Just one thing, though…. well, two actually: as I said earlier, get round the UK next year - and definitely make Yorkshire one of your stops.
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