AC/DC return to prove they are the last great rock-and-roll band

If, as their 1975 self-mythologizing legend suggests, the Australian musical colossus AC/DC took the long way to the top, then today, more than 30 years later, they are still working at the old rock-and-roll craft—bigger, louder, and still out of control—like their lives depend on it.

With the release of the new album Black Ice (Columbia) and their first tour in nearly a decade, AC/DC are virtually starting over again—but indeed starting at the top this time.

According RIAA certification, AC/DC’s string of 17 albums have had sales to the tune of 70 million copies in the USA, a figure that puts them in front of the Rolling Stones and bested only by the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, and Pink Floyd. (If Black Ice is a hit, they could surpass Floyd in the next year.)

Culturally, they are more relevant than ever, with new generations latching onto the band’s hard-rocking legacy, be it through classic rock radio, the internet, Guitar Hero, or the mass merchandising of AC/DC t-shirts. This is a band with fans into their 40s and 50s who can say they saw the late, great lead singer Bon Scott fronting the band, as well fans who weren’t even in kindergarten last time they toured.

AC/DC have managed to rewrite the rules, survive tragedy, be written off over and over, and survive long enough to show us again why they are the best. All with little compromise of who they are and what they do.

Still, as uncompromising as AC/DC’s music has been—this brutally perfect storm of cataclysmic power chords, a straight-at-the-gut, pounding 4/4 beat, and feral-pitched vocals—they have managed to live in a surprising sort of middle ground. Here was a band with huge riffs and a dark nature that made them saviors for metalheads, but at the same time the punk rockers could easily love their lean-and-mean, no-frills brand of take-no-prisoners rock.

This past Sunday evening was a dress rehearsal show on the eve of the start of the band’s Rock and Roll Train tour. For a small, invitation-only audience that came from all the world, Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania’s Wachovia Arena was host to as great a big arena show as I have ever seen or ever expect to see again.

Complete with overwhelming PA, hundreds of massed lights, jumbo screens, a giant train derailed at center stage, an inflated “Whole Lotta” Rosie, and a band still tight and firing at full-throttle—this was the ultimate, ear-ringing delight.

After listening to Black Ice, I was unsure if Brian Johnson could really pull off the vocals live. And Angus Young? Could he possibly prowl the stage like some gum-chewing, Chuck-Berry-duck-walking maniac throwing hyperactive fits?

Unbelievably and uncontestably, the answer was yes.

Johnson, Young, his rhythm guitarist brother Malcolm Young, drummer Phil Rudd, and bassist Cliff Williams—all well on the flip side of 50 years—more than proved they are our last great rock-and-roll band. Among the truly big rock-and-roll bands, young or old, there’s no one nearly at this level. I’ve seen just about all of them and no one can compare.

Springsteen? Yeah, but it’s a different thing. He gets up and does a different show every night and there’s always a certain magic in the passion and ever-changing setlist he and the E Street Band have made their trade.

While AC/DC’s show is an orchestrated affair with careful lighting and video cues, those sustaining SG riffs literally take yourr breath away. The power is undeniable. Their canon of songs (and row of “For Those About to Rock” cannons firing at the show’s finale) will likely never be equaled again in a live concert setting. There’s asense that this is the last time we will ever see a rock show done like this by a band of this caliber.

Pound for pound, fist-pumping hit after hit, note for sustaining note, and seemingly with every bit of power as they ever had even at their prime—when Bon Scott was hoisted atop Angus’ shoulders and howling “Live Wire”—AC/DC handily proved they are the greatest rock-and-roll band in the world in 2008…just as they were in 1978, 1988, and 1998.

Ripping into their set with Black Ice’s first single “Rock ’N Roll Train,” AC/DC show they can still do what they have always done. This is a trademark kind of song for the band; like the equally legendary Ramones, this is a band that has made a career out of one kind of song that you could count on. Things only picked up from there and never slowed down. The hits came and they didn’t stop: “Hell Ain’t a Bad Place to Be,” the epochal “Back in Black,” a surging “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap,” the razor riff of “Thunderstruck,” and then “Hells Bells”—for which the giant centerpiece bell descends from the lighting truss and a 61-year-old Johnson defies ages and gleefully swings from it like he’s a kid.

The crowd chanted every word of “You Shook Me All Night Long,” and the night continued with the rightfully explosive “TNT,” a lusty “Whole Lotta Rosie,” and an unforgettable take on “Let There Be Rock.” Before it was over there wass “Highway to Hell” and those cannons on “For Those About to Rock.”

It’s been a couple days and my ears are still ringing. I have no regrets.