Oracle Arena, Oakland CA, December 2nd 2008
AC/DC. Black Ice tour. Great show! And I would know: I've seen these guys I don't know how many times since 1988. Generally twice on each tour, but once thrice. It's a great show if you can even STAND it. Which, I understand...some can't.
I guess I should put my review in context, so you can consider the source and salt to taste based on how big or little a fan you personally are. As compared to me.
Well, I would say AC/DC is probably not as good as Beethoven. But they put Strauss and Brahms to SHAME. Seriously. In fact, I would say that AC/DC compares favorably to Joyce, Fitzgerald and even Hemingway.
Hemingway was overrated as a novelist. Great short story writer, though.
I would put AC/DC in about the same class as a Goya or a Cezanne. Same basic ballpark.
So there's context. Now for the show itself!
Well, what can I say? The show was very good, very fun. There were one or two rough patches - they totally screwed up the tempo on "Thunderstruck"! It was all over the place for a while, 'til suddenly it slam-clicked into place at the third-of-the-way mark, and all's aright from there on. Still, very unusual for them! It's a tricky song, I suppose, but they NAIL it every other time...! That sort of thing does happen, I guess. It was more a moment of comedy for me than anything else. I was giggling like a loon, looking around at people having just a little more difficulty than usual pumping their fists in unison. And yet...at the same time, I feel like I was the only one who really seemed to notice anything was off.
Anyway. VERY minor blip, in the big scheme! They were great. They are always great - they always put on such a fun show. With that time tested recipe that they follow so uncompromisingly, and those same classic ingredients in the mix (ESPECIALLY now that Phil Rudd's back! No offense to Simon Wright or to the bald guy - I loved that bald guy! He ruled!), you can hardly go wrong with an AC/DC show.
Angus was his usual self, a fret-searing demon, tearing around like an epileptic marathoner on a sprint binge as always! Cliff and Malcolm anchored the rhythm and swing with bass and six-string riffage respectively, and they sounded *tight* on those mean 'n' loud harmony refrains. Phil Rudd...wow...so glad he came back after that long absence. He's the missing ingredient. Not just for this band - for every other band on earth that lacks Phil Rudd on drums, he is in some way the missing ingredient. Obviously a select number of bands do attempt to compensate for this lack, with whatever drummers of their own, with varying degrees of success.
Brian Johnson is the MAN. Lord, I loved Bon Scott. And what a character he was, and what a great band Bon-era AC/DC was! And Bon's lyrics - DROLL to DROOL for, SON. But Brian is tha man. Brian-era AC/DC is the band I think of when I think "greatest rock band ever." Bon Scott era AC/DC...they were on the way there, and I wish we'd had a chance to see in some alternate universe what that next album would've sounded like...God bless you, Bon. Requiescat in pace.
But I was talking about the SHOW! Yes, we all know Brian's voice isn't the unearthly god-of-wrath on-key-scream of apocalyptic good-naturedness it used to be (witness Back In Black, For Those About To Rock We Salute You, and Flick of the Switch). We know that since he blew out his vocal chords at the Donington gig on the Flick of the Switch tour, he's struggled to get back to those heights. And he's not there. No one has ever been there, except him - and it seems there's some things you can't quite come back from.
But you know what? Who cares! So he's not quite the BJ of the first 3 albums - so what? He sounds great. Frankly he's sounded better every tour since '88, and even if it's a smidgeon diminished from its Olympian, nay, Valhallian peak, his voice is still the perfect instrument to crank up and conduct this band's mix of polished chrome tunesmithery and machine-tooled steam-engine pounding power. He's a seasoned performer, his pipes are in full effect, he's got a lot of power, and he knows how to use it - he's oiled and sanded and varnished that voice of his into a great, gravelly signature howling growl that makes you believe the blues could have been invented in Newcastle.
And put all together, the sum of these five men is something greater than human. They form a single superorganism that not only eats and breathes rock and roll, it also exhales and excretes rock and roll as a waste product. And the sheer energy they put out...man. If science got the idea to study these guys, I bet the energy crisis could be managed just by harnessing a small fraction, a mere tithe of that raw power.
On the night, the band were in top form (a few slips aside, as I said). The new songs sounded great, and had people on their feet just as much as the endless barrage of classics did - and come to classics, the song selection was CHOICE. A nigh-flawless set list*. The props were tasteful. The light show was understated as always - what more do you need, but a spotlight on Angus Young?
That's a joke about the props. Some of them were most assuredly not tasteful. But it's all part of their adorable tongue-in-cheek shtick!
*re "nigh-flawless": I've got to tell you, though. I'm really sick of "The Jack." They need to either drop it from the set list for awhile, or bring back the original far-cleverer (and really, far naughtier!) album lyrics.
All in all, no serious complaints. Great gig! Great show. In terms of AC/DC gigs, it's solidly in my top 3. And one of the ones ahead of it is more up that high for sentimental reasons and circumstances surrounding...! So top 3, top 2 maybe.
Reading this post over, now I'm wondering whether it was really necessary for me to put all those comparisons at the front to let people know where I'm coming from.
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