Though I never actually watched an episode of Beavis And Butthead<\/i>, I always thought it was fitting that one of the two lead characters on the show was constantly seen wearing an AC\/DC t-shirt. Because let\u2019s face it, if there was ever a band that could be described as a rock and roll cartoon, it\u2019s these guys.<\/p>\n
Four years after their latest return from semi-retirement, the guys have delivered their third official live album, and first since 1992.\u00a0 Live At River Plate<\/i> captures the quintet in Argentina on the worldwide tour that followed the release of 2008\u2019s well-received Black Ice<\/i>, and it\u2019s everything you would expect it to be. This was a massive stadium tour and these songs are performed accordingly; everything is huge. The thing about AC\/DC, though, is that while decades of stadium concerts has caused their music to swell to a massive scale, they\u2019ve never veered from its essential simplicity: two guitars, bass, drums, voice. Period. <\/p>\n
AC\/DC lost a lot when original frontman Bon Scott passed away in 1980, as evidenced by the setlist here, which is still, more than three decades later, split roughly equally between the six years Scott was in the band and the 32 that \u201cnew guy\u201d Brian Johnson has manned the mic. Johnson still has that gargoyle\u2019s-croak voice, vocal cords more shredded than ever today, but he barks out these songs with gusto and the Young brothers, bassist Cliff Williams and drummer Phil Rudd remain one of the tightest musical units in hard rock history.<\/p>\n
The setlist for River Plate<\/i> is right on target, if somewhat predictable. I\u2019m sure the superfans would have appreciated a few more rarities, but in terms of what your average fan buying a ticket on this tour would have wanted to hear, the boys delivered it. You\u2019ve got classics from the Bon Scott era (\u201cHell Ain\u2019t A Bad Place To Be,\u201d \u201cThe Jack,\u201d \u201cLet There Be Rock\u201d), classics from the Johnson era (\u201cBack In Black,\u201d \u201cHells Bells,\u201d \u201cYou Shook Me All Night Long\u201d) and four tunes from the then-new album: opener \u201cRock And Roll Train,\u201d \u201cBlack Ice,\u201d \u201cBig Jack\u201d and \u201cWar Machine.\u201d<\/p>\n
Is there anything truly new here, though? Other than those four new songs, not really. These are the same performances the group has been delivering for decades. That might sound like a knock, but it\u2019s like the saying goes: if it ain\u2019t broke, don\u2019t fix it. \u00a0So, no surprises here, but there\u2019s certainly a meaty slab of head-banging hard rock for AC\/DC fans young and old.<\/p>\n
The Argentinians fans, it must be said, are everything you might have hoped for after listening to\/watching an album like Rush\u2019s Rush In Rio<\/i> (and yes, I know Argentina and Brazil are rivals and neighbors, but the enthusiasm of their rock fans is definitely something they have in common). \u201cThunderstruck\u201d gets a huge roar from the crowd, but the response to \u201cThe Jack\u201d is so over the top it\u2019s almost hilarious, as the crowd sings the guitar chords (all three of them) over the opening, nearly drowning out the band. The raucous horde then proceeds to do the same for the opening chords of both \u201cYou Shook Me All Night Long\u201d and \u201cHighway To Hell.\u201d<\/p>\n
A couple of other song notes. There\u2019s nothing you can do but surrender to the propulsiveness of \u201cShoot To Thrill,\u201d surely one of the more underappreciated tunes in the band\u2019s catalog; it\u2019s great to see it getting some attention with this fiery rendition. Only one word could possibly describe Angus Young\u2019s solo on \u201cLet There Be Rock\u201d: ridiculous. Everywhere else he\u2019s concise and precise; here he goes on and on and on. I honestly don\u2019t know how Phil Rudd\u2019s arms did not fall off at the shoulder after playing a nearly double-time backbeat for the better part of 11 minutes straight\u2014and after he stops, Angus goes on for another six and half minutes completely solo!<\/p>\n
The mostly forgettable two and a half decades between 1982 and 2008 are mostly forgotten here, other than well-received runs at \u201cThunderstruck,\u201d \u201cDog Eat Dog\u201d and probably the best song of that entire 27-year trudge, \u201cMoneytalks.\u201d<\/p>\n
The boys close out the show with \u201cFor Those About to Rock (We Salute You),\u201d surely one of the most overrated songs ever to hold down the closing slot at a stadium concert, but what\u2019re you going to do? When a crowd this fervent wants cannons\u2026 you give them cannons.<\/p>\n
If the Black Ice<\/i> tour turns out to have been AC\/DC\u2019s last \u2013 Brain Johnson, among others, has threatened to retire before, and at 65, who can blame him \u2013 they could certainly do worse for a swan song. Live At River Plate<\/i> shows a band that\u2019s still able to deliver all the fire required to light up a stadium of rabid fans, a living, breathing, duckwalking, guitar-shredding rock and roll cartoon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":31179,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5683],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-42871","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-ac-dc","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/42871","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\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42871"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/42871\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42871"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=42871"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=42871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}