The Musical Box

AC/DC's angus young in 2008: "angus is bad." photo courtesy of sony music.

One of my favorite tales from 28-plus years of writing about music centers around the first time I reviewed AC/DC.

Rewind to November 1981. Unlike now, Rupp Arena used to be a concert beast during the autumn months. The talk that fall dealt mostly with a sold out Rolling Stones concert that awaited in mid-December. But before that, Rupp and Lexington had to deal with AC/DC, which was already an arena staple having played the venue only 16 months earlier.

So, somewhat naively, I figured the Aussie rockers would trigger a respectable though hardly remarkable return turnout. 8,000, maybe? It was a Monday evening performance. Most arena rock bands would kill for a weeknight crowd that size.

Of course, guitarist Angus Young - who even then had turned his trademark schoolboy uniform/stage costume into a symbol that rock ‘n roll grows old but never quite up - and company were riding a hearty second wave.

In February 1980, AC/DC singer Bon Scott died of alcohol poisoning. By June, Scottish vocalist Brian Johnson was on board and Back in Black, an album that has since sold over 22 million copies worldwide, was in stores. A week before the 1981 Rupp concert, For Those About to Rock was released and was, by show date, sitting comfortably at the top of the Billboard charts. It would remain AC/DC’s only U.S. No. 1 album until Black Ice was issued last fall.

The crowd attendance for AC/DC’s Nov. 30, 1981 concert turned out to be in excess of 20,000. I was floored. Clearly, I had underestimated the band’s ongoing appeal. Feeling mostly ambivalent toward its music up to that point, I decided to ask the patron seated next to me what the big deal was about AC/DC that had so eluded me. Dressed in layers of denim and chains, my neighbor introduced himself as Spike.

“So, Spike, tell me something,” I asked. “AC/DC is cool and everything. But what is the draw? What accounts for a crowd like this on a Monday night?”

Spike looked at me like I was from Mars. He spoke only five words.

“It’s Angus.” he said. Spike’s eyes then narrowed as he shot me a steely look to possibly evaluate whether or not it was worth his while to continue. “Angus is bad.”

Now, to fully appreciate this miniature evaluation, you have to understand the phonetics applied to the last word. “Bad.” A three letter adjective. Spike drew it out to at least four syllables.

There. I had my answer. Angus was bad. What more need I know? Of course, it would take another decade and an additional four AC/DC performances (and subsequent reviews) to understand the real secret to Young’s appeal: humor. C’mon, a guy strutting around in a school uniform and makeshift devil’s horns as though 50,000 volts were shooting through him? How could I have missed the fun in that?

For all of its outcast, roughneck image, AC/DC, it turned out, was a glorified party band. It has never visibly aspired to be anything more. That’s why its music, right up to Black Ice and a sold out Sunday concert in Cincinnati, has been so resilient to change.

Over the years, the celebratory attitude has been mirrored as much by Johnson as Young. After interviewing the singer prior to AC/DC’s November1990 Rupp show (its last local appearance), he asked if I was going attend to the concert. After answering in the affirmative, he laughed and in a heavy Scottish brogue said. “Well, yeh’ better. Otherwise, I’m gonna git up on-stehge an’ call yeh’ nehmes.”

AC/DC performs at 7:30 p.m. Sunday at U.S. Bank Arena in Cincinnatil. The performance is sold out.