Australian rockers AC\/DC have long been lambasted for a crime that seemingly no band is guilty of these days –lacking a true greatest hits album. AC\/DC Live <\/i>has long been considered by resigned fans to be the best they can hope for in the way of such a collection, and consequently, it\u2019s resented as comparable to the orange in a Christmas stocking — nice, but not what you were looking for. If treated as solely a greatest hits album, it fails to carry the necessary\u00a0 polish, and if treated purely as a live project in the tradition of the Bon Scott-era If You Want Blood You\u2019ve Got It<\/i>, then some songs are missing the required energy of a concert setting.<\/p>\n
But if treated as an amalgam of the two, and listened to just for the music, it\u2019s not a half bad piece of work.<\/p>\n
The album is primarily dominated by Brian Johnson-era songs, an inevitability of the band\u2019s lineup at this show. A few such songs, like \u201cMoneytalks\u201d and \u201cYou Shook Me All Night Long\u201d are virtual clones of their studio versions, with absolutely no noticeable changes made by either Malcolm or Angus Young on guitars or in Johnson\u2019s vocal. Others, such as \u201cThunderstruck\u201d and \u201cBack In Black\u201d change just enough about the old classics to keep a longtime fan interested. Angus Young is notorious for simplifying his solos in live performances as compared to those in studio, but his live \u201cBack In Black\u201d solo, while different and, yes, less difficult, still carries with it the vibrancy needed to boost the track, and I don\u2019t believe the song suffers. As a matter of fact, I happen to prefer this version to the original studio one.<\/p>\n
The Bon Scott songs are certainly the most interesting part of the album, a chance to hear a different vocalist perform the band\u2019s oldest and dearest classics. Some, like the all-important \u201cHighway To Hell\u201d and \u201cTNT\u201d do not really suffer for lack of the charismatic frontman who wrote the songs and made them legends before his death in 1980. Johnson performs admirably on these, and the crowd is appreciative of his efforts.<\/p>\n
However, no one but Bon Scott should even attempt to sing \u201cThe Jack.\u201d Without Scott\u2019s dripping vocal, connection to the listener, and raw charisma, the song is really quite boring and extremely repetitive. And while Brian Johnson can give a great vocal performance, a comparison of his charisma to Scott\u2019s is like comparing Richard Nixon\u2019s natural magnetism to Jack Kennedy\u2019s. Though not as painful, \u201cWhole Lotta Rosie\u201d also suffers from the absence of its rightful vocalist.<\/p>\n
Most of the Bon Scott songs are toward the end of the show, so when \u201cTNT\u201d begins to fade out, you know what\u2019s coming: perennial concert closer \u201cFor Those About To Rock (We Salute You).\u201d Thankfully, not only is this mammoth (over seven minutes long) a fair adaptation of the original studio version, it\u2019s much better and, in fact, the best song on the album. It\u2019s obvious to any listener that the band loves playing this song, and the crowd really gets into it. The major difference between it and the studio version (besides the length) is a brilliant tempo change at the pivotal moment when the song moves into chorus-only. Here, more than at any other point on the album, you can feel both the crowd and band rocking, and you can\u2019t help but do it yourself. Accompanied by cannons and the thunderous guitar of Angus Young, the song is a raw masterpiece in this form.<\/p>\n
All in all, AC\/DC Live<\/i> lacks cohesion and a central theme, and the music has an extreme high (\u201cFor Those About To Rock\u201d) and just as a severe a low (\u201cThe Jack.\u201d) But, as a whole, it\u2019s still a collection of great songs, and fans and newbies alike should be glad they have it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":29559,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5683],"rating":[5612],"class_list":["post-41152","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-ac-dc","rating-rating-b-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/64"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41152"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41152\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=41152"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=41152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}