Valuable few bands can fill a stadium 52 years into their profession. A lot much less play to an viewers closely populated by mother and father and their teenagers/tweens, each generations cheering for 77-year-old singer Brian Johnson and white-haired guitar icon Angus Younger, 70. Whereas decked out in flashing pink satan horn headbands, no much less.
However AC/DC did simply that, taking part in 21 immediately recognizable sing-along tunes of appreciable heaviness—nearly all of them traditional rock radio staples and cultural touchstones—rendered with an influence and keenness that belies their many many years of service. Kicking off with 1978’s “If You Want Blood (You’ve Got It),” Younger, in his trademark schoolboy outfit (pink velvet for this present) and recognizable black and white Gibson SG, took the stage to thunderous appreciation.
Subsequent was “Back in Black,” the music and album that marked Johnson’s 1980 entrée to the lineup. The frontman proved expressive and animated regardless of critical listening to points that sidelined him for a couple of scary years, and a voice that, understandably, doesn’t all the time have the maintain and energy of earlier days. The quintet did a couple of tracks off their newest, 2020’s “Power Up,” however as anticipated and appreciated, the hits dominated, from “Shot Down to Flames” to “Hell’s Bells” to latter-day crowd favourite “Thunderstruck.”
PASADENA, CALIFORNIA – APRIL 18: AC/DC lead singer Brian Johnson and guitarist Angus Younger carry out on the Rose Bowl on April 18, 2025 in Pasadena, California. (Eric Thayer/For The Instances)
(Eric Thayer/For The Instances)
The band’s set, regardless of the relentless, strident perfection and energy of the rhythm part, wasn’t a fast circulation, with pretty frequent darkened-stage breaks between songs. The second half of the two-hour-plus efficiency proved the stronger, Johnson’s power seemingly renewed on this third present of 13 for this leg of Energy Up tour.
Followers as AC/DC performs on the Rose Bowl on April 18, 2025 in Pasadena, California.
(Eric Thayer/For The Instances)
The band’s hardcore devotees could surprise if AC/DC could also be barely callous or merely pushed, as their profession suggests. Different followers don’t know or care in regards to the lineup’s backstory, which took its first devastating flip in February 1980 with the dying of singer Bon Scott, 33. In lower than six months, with new frontman Johnson, beforehand of Brit band Geordie, AC/DC launched what would grow to be one of many best-selling albums in historical past, “Back in Black,” their first of 11 LPs (to this point) with Johnson.
Like a Dickensian Andy Capp, Johnson is an uber-charming rogue, an everyman bluesy belter whose winking humor with a touch of the scoundrel will not be completely not like Scott’s demeanor although every man’s vocals, inflection and stage presence are/have been clearly their very own. And beloved as such.
AC/DC lead singer Brian Johnson and guitarist Angus Younger carry out on the Rose Bowl on April 18, 2025 in Pasadena, California.
(Eric Thayer/For The Instances)
Nonetheless, on February 28, 2016, within the midst of AC/DC’s “Rock or Bust” tour, docs advised Johnson if he didn’t cease performing instantly, he risked whole listening to loss. By Might 17, 2016, Weapons N’ Roses frontman Axl Rose joined AC/DC as a fill-in vocalist for 2 dozen exhibits, a transfer that shocked many and thrilled others. Seemingly nothing will cease the juggernaut that’s AC/DC. They’re directly a band of brothers, actually—based by Angus and late brother Malcolm Younger—but additionally not. Because the middle-aged concertgoer subsequent to me famous: “Angus is all about the money and he and his brother [Malcom] own the band.” That mentioned, it was the followers’ tenth present throughout a number of continents, although he purposely averted seeing the Rose-fronted model of AC/DC.
Johnson, his listening to points managed, was again within the fold by 2019, and post-pandemic, taking part in reside with AC/DC by October 2023. Apparently, one of many different bands nonetheless filling stadiums are certainly Weapons N’ Roses. Much more titillating: Rose and guitarist Slash, the Johnson and Younger of American rock, have been in attendance on the Rose Bowl, their stroll by way of the gang inciting hundreds to gasp and crane their necks for a have a look at the duo.
However all eyes have been on stage for the two-hour-plus present. AC/DC have written winking songs about sexually transmitted ailments (“The Jack”); massive girls (“Whole Lotta Rosie”); voracious encounters (“You Shook Me All Night Long,” “She’s Got Balls”); and naturally, Hell (within the summary). The tunes are all exuberant and plain, and even with a brand new period of political correctness, by no means offensive.
Regardless of any challenges of well being and member attrition, AC/DC stay unstoppable, plain, Younger’s personal model of Chuck Berry’s duckwalk and proving his preternatural power, as did his anticipated and all the time prolonged (10 minutes? 15?) solo part throughout “Let There Be Rock.”
A minimum of six songs within the set have been made notorious by Scott—together with “Sin City,” “Dirty Deeds (Done Dirt Cheap),” “Riff Raff,” “Let There Be Rock,” and “Highway to Hell,” however they’re a lot part of the band’s oeuvre it issues not that Johnson has been singing them longer than Scott did. One other fixed: AC/DC music titles are continuously convivial lowbrow bon mots—”Have a Drink on Me,” “Hells Bells,” “Stiff Upper Lip” —now so frequent within the vernacular that AC/DC may need invented the phrases. At this level, who is aware of; perhaps they did.
One legitimate criticism leveled on the band, can also be the (not-so) secret to AC/DC’s energy and continued and deserved world-wide success: they make the identical document each time. If it ain’t broke, don’t repair it. And when issues do “break,” they’re shortly mounted. As a substitute of hoped-for drummer Phil Rudd, rounding out the reside lineup are drummer Matt Laug, with the band for 2 years; and expert journeyman bassist Chris Chaney of Jane’s Dependancy infamy. He changed Cliff Williams, who first joined AC/DC in 1977. And there are two “Young people” on guitar; Angus and his nephew, Stevie, 68, who changed his uncle Malcolm within the band in 2014.
A multi-generational sea of followers sporting glowing satan horns as AC/DC performs on the Rose Bowl on April 18, 2025 in Pasadena, California.
(Eric Thayer/For The Instances)
So, will AC/DC maintain going? Clearly, for so long as they will. It’s what they do. Will audiences, followers younger and previous, maintain displaying up? They may. It’s what they do. The world circa 2025 might use two hours of an ear-splitting sing-along with 70,000 like-minded denizens, celebrating the working-class joys of booze, broads and rock and roll. AC/DC stay the band to ship that joyful bipartisan escapism. As Bon Scott sang (and Johnson by no means has) on the bagpipe-belter “It’s a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock & Roll),” and AC/DC hit certainly hit that prime, and stay ensconced there.
AC/DC did their viewers an amazing service in having The Fairly Reckless as openers. Singer Taylor Momsen had an enormous presence on the large stage, wanting just like the Runways Cherie Currie circa ‘70s, her voice sultry pitch perfect, her commanding voice as genuine as her positively magnetic stage presence. Overheard from a nearby seat: “I was thoroughly blown away.”
Like AC/DC, the band are guitar-driven and write great songs, their approach the perfect blend between accessible rock with the danger, volume and power of metal. It’s a disgrace AC/DC are so by-the-book onstage, as a result of a Momsen-Johnson duet can be a pairing for the ages.
