ACDC
Croke Park
★★★★★
In Ireland, AC/DC played in front of 82,000 spectators from the old Point Depot to Punchestown Racecourse, Aviva Stadium and finally Croke Park.
While their creative heyday – now 40 years old – is coming to an end, their popularity is only growing, and the size of their venues is also increasing.
Rock bands that capture the imagination of the public and sell millions of records are gradually disappearing into music history.
All the more reason to appreciate those who are still around. AC/DC’s music is timeless; the band members, unfortunately, are not. The only surviving original member is lead guitarist Angus Young, who is also the only indispensable member. He will be 70 in a year and still wears his school uniform, with his collar-length, snow-white hair peeking out from under his school cap.
He no longer jumps around the stage like a music-obsessed man, but he can still hypnotize with his Gibson SG. He’s Gandalf with a guitar.
Lead singer Brian Johnson is 76 and twists his body to reach the high notes like a man trying to deliver a basketball.
The audience is mostly young at heart, although not chronologically. Everyone present defies the tyranny of time, and why not?
It’s called the “Power Up” tour, named after the album released in 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic – one of the few musical bright spots of this year, pun intended.
Yet they only play two songs from this album: the forgettable “Demon’s Eyes” and “Shot in the Dark”.
Although bands like AC/DC produce new material to signal that they are still a creative force, not many fans want to listen to it. And AC/DC has been accused in the past of sticking to the same old setlist from tour to tour.
Not this time. Sin City and Riff Raff from Powerage, the opening track If You Want Blood (You Got It) from Highway to Hell and Shoot to Thrill and Have a Drink on Me from the album Back in Black are reminiscent of the period from the late 1970s to 1980, when they produced a whole series of albums without a single bad song.
It was one riff after another, one hit after another, and not a bad song in the set, apart from the lackluster “Let There Be Rock,” with its 20-minute, 19-minute-too-long guitar solo that ends with Angus Young circling a raised platform above the crowd.
The rest of the set is a compendium of classic pieces that perfectly demonstrate why this band remains one of the most enduring in history – Back in Black, Highway to Hell, Thunderstruck and You Shook Me All Night Long, to name a few.
This was the loudest concert I’ve attended in Croke Park, a tsunami of noise from start to finish, culminating in cannon shots and fireworks at the end. The bass was too high in the mix and the vocals too soft, but this was quickly rectified.
Did we see their farewell tour? Will we ever see people like them again? Will we ever see them again?
