THUNDERSTRUCK: My AC/DC Concert Experience.

What a week it's been. When we last left off, I was hours away from seeing the concert to end all concerts, that being AC/DC. I had hoped to write down my post-concert thoughts ASAP, but fatigue, work, and other stuff got in the way. Because although I don't even know how I made it through work on Tuesday following the concert - I barely made it through despite ringing ears and off-center equilibrium. I was hangin' on by a thread, but had to be at my best and sharpest on Wednesday for our annual holiday party at work. I was indeed wined and dined at the outdoor, poolside patio of the fancy-schmancy Mandrian Hotel in West Hollywood. As always, I didn't make it through our annual gift exchange without a certain degree of drama. I kept picking gifts from the pot onl to have them stolen by coworkers over and over again, losing out on such appealing yet practical booty as Target and Best Buy gift cards. In the end, I came away with a somewhat cool coffee-table-style book on the history of film, which was not a bad takeaway. But man, as has been previously documented here on the blog, those holiday gift exchanges get intense. And tiring. By the time I got back from the lunch early Wednesday evening I was ready to drop. And that meant that yesterday was another crazy day at work, catching up on stuff I had gotten behind on during the week.

But anyways ... who cares about any of that ... it's time to get THUNDERSTRUCK!


AC/DC Concert Recap:

- There is every other Rock & Roll band, and then there is AC/DC. To me, no other band personifies the fundamentals of rock moreso than AC/DC. Because in all their years of performing, they've kept it simple, stayed true to their mission, and never wavered in their effort to kick ass and take names. They've never written a love song, a power ballad, or hip hop song. Every song of theirs boils down to crunching guitar licks, fist-pumping, scream-at-the-top-of-your-lungs vocals, and lyrics about kicking ass, rocking out, and gettin' it on. Like I said, rock & roll to the core - nothing fancy, nothing complicated. And that's what's made the band absolutely legendary - larger than life icons who, as I found out on Monday, still rock just as hard as ever.

As I've previously talked about, I got the tix for Monday's concert months in advance, and ever since that purchase was made, the anticipation had been building. I had seen the likes of Aerosmith, Tom Petty, Kiss, Van Halen, and Guns n' Roses in concert - I've been lucky to see some of the all time great bands live - but AC/DC was most definitely on that list of need-to-see bands - one of the few bands who, if and when they toured, I would drop almost everything to see live and in person. AC/DC hadn't toured since I was in high school, and from what I've read, there's no guarantee that there will be that many tours still to come. And if there's one rock band to see live, while you have the chance, it's AC/DC.

So even though it was a Monday, even though I was braindead from a long day at work ... I knew that when I was called upon to rock and/or roll by the real-life guitar heroes in AC/DC, I would have no problem standing up, no problem being counted, for what I was about to receive.

And so it was. The Axe-Man drove down to LA from San Diego, and we met up with Kyle O. After a quick bite the three of us drove down to The Forum in Inglewood - past sketchy restaurants and shady video stores. Past guys hawking bootleg AC/DC T-shirts on street corners on the road to the arena. Past throngs of honking cars and eager fans. Finally, we parked in one of the Forum's massive lots and made our way inside. The place was a zoo - the narrow, falling-apart corridors were packed to the brim with people. It literally took almost half an hour just to walk to the other end of the stadium to get to our seats. There were aging hard-rockers, punk kids, geeky teens, families, women in torn fishnets, guys who looked like they wanted to pick a fight. Most of all, there were thousands of people ready to get their socks rocked.

And get their socks rocks they did. AC/DC came out with the fury of a thousand burning suns, and lo, it was a sight to behold. I've seen a number of "aging" rock acts in concert, and all have been able to perform up to expectations with varying degrees of success. I've seen Tom Petty look a bit lethargic, Steven Tyler deal with a voice that can't always hold up, David Lee Roth with creaky joints ... but there was ABSOULTELY NONE of that with Brian Johnson and Angus Young. Especially Angus. Holy hell, that man is an absolute freak of nature, an otherworldly guitar hero who is truly a rock n' roll deity. The man is insane.

Every time my focus turned to the man called Angus, I couldn't help but smile ear to ear. First of all, he's the definition of icon and legend. To see him don the trademark schoolboy uniform and jump around like a man possessed ... it was surreal to see it in person after singing along to AC/DC's songs for so many years. But I emphasize that this was not some mere fascimile of Angus Young up on stage - this was a guy who still had it, who still gave 200%, who didn't stop running, jumping, spinning on the floor, speaking in tongues, and shredding on the guitar in ways that would make Satan himself cower in primal fear. At one point midway through the show, Angus gave singer Brian Johnson a much-needed break, putting on a roller-coaster ride of a performance that absolutely tore the house down, laying down a blistering guitar solo that saw the ageless Angus running up and down the stage, onto a rising, monolithis platform that ascended towards the ceiling, and then onto a platform that sat below a giant video wall, magnifying the larger than life nature of the man, the myth, the legend. It's hard to think of any other rock guitarists who are as iconic - the full-of-mischief Scottish smile, the one-legged strut, the on-the-floor spin, and of course the schoolboy outfit. If a spirit of rock n' roll exists, it may live inside the body of one Angus f'n Young.

But all of AC/DC came out to play. The concert opened with a cartoon video that took an R-rated turn and got the crowd amped with anticipation. In the video, AC/DC boarded a runaway locomotive captained by some devilish women, and soon enough, a steaming train crashed through the stage and AC/DC took the stage, blasting their newest hit, Rock N' Roll Train, and working the capacity crowd into a frenzy. One other new song followed, and then, when the instantly-recognizable intro of BACK IN BLACK blasted across the Forum, it was clear that business had just picked up.

From there, some new songs off of Black Ice were mixed in with the hits. DIRTY DEEDS was a highlight. Seeing Malcom Young growl "dirty deeds and they're done dirt cheap" into the mic was awesome incarnate, and Brian Johnson gave that one his all. Kick ass. And before I could even fully absorb it all, the opening riff of one of my all-time favorite songs, THUNDERSTRUCK, echoed throughout the arena. Perhaps the ultimate adrenaline-pumping rock anthem of all-time, Thunderstruck brought the house down, and we all pumped our fists and chanted "Thunder" along with the war-like sounds of the drums. We were "shakin' at the knees" indeed. Soon after that, we got a double-shot of the classics with the tongue-in-cheek cautionary tale known as THE JACK and then one of my personal favorites - HELL'S BELLS, which saw Brian Johnson rapell from the rafters clinging to a giant, clanging bell. Have I used the word "awesome" too much?

After that, the crowd once again was hanging from the rafters when AC/DC broke out SHOOT TO THRILL. Next up came a pretty cool new song in War Machine, and then, one of the classics - YOU SHOOK ME (ALL NIGHT LONG). I can't count the number of times I've rocked out to that song, but it was even more amazing to hear it up close and personal. In a way, it was almost cool to be kind of far back in the Forum, because you got the full effect of a giant stadium full of fans united in the power of rock. And we were amongst the AC/DC faithful, nto some yuppies who scored comp tix via industry connections. In fact, in front of us sat a father and mother with their young son, who must have been about 10 years old. The kid was gettin' down harder than anyone else in our section, jumping on his seat and positively thrilled to be seeing such a cool concert. To see the father passing on the ways of rock n' roll to his son, it was a sight to behold indeed.

But the hits didn't stop there. TNT was next (I'm dynamite!), and as usual AC/DC had the crowd in the palm of its hand. With pyrotechniks going off left and right, balls of fire erupting from the stage, and Brian Johnson wailing in his trademark straight-outta-hell rasp, it was as if we were on some post-apocalyptic rock n' roll utopia. As if that wasn't enough, for WHOLE LOTTA ROSIE, a giant-sized blow-up Rosie inflated before our eyes and danced and pranced above the stage like the most perverted Macy's Parade balloon ever seen. After one more song, Let There Be Rock, the band left the stage, and the crowd came alive, chanting the band's name and demanding more ...

... and the band was happy to oblige, returning to the stage for a double encore. First was HIGHWAY TO HELL, one of the most cannonical songs in the history of rock. Speaking of cannon, the band then wheeled out a line of cannons to put the final exclamation point on the night, as their booming shots punctuated the call-to-arms anthem that is FOR THOSE ABOUT TO ROCK (WE SALUTE YOU), which is, of course, the perfect song with which to end an AC/DC concert.

And it made me think. After having been rocked for the better part of two hours, were we really then to be counted among those *about* to rock? I thought about it, and the answer was, yes, we were about to rock. Because while an AC/DC concert is a compressed ball of rock n' roll energy that can only be sustained for so long, it's up to us to take that energy, that momentum, that spirit of rock n' roll, and bring it with us into our every day lives. Because really, aren't we all just schoolboys who want to break out, stand up, jump up, spin around, and rock out? Is there not a little AC/DC in all of us - that inner wild-child that wants to get back in black, get thunderstruck, and board a rock n' roll train with a one-way ticket for the highway to hell? AC/DC is that timeless urge to break free and rock out, and it's therefore no wonder that, even though they're past 50 and weathered many long miles, the Angus Youngs of the world can still channel some inner demon and defy space and time and logic itself.

This was a once-in-a-lifetime concert, and even amongst the chipped walls and cavernous corridors of the forum, it was clear that we were peasants in the High Court of Rock n' Roll, paying tribute to the Kings. I left much as I thought I would: thunderstruck.


- And with that I head out into the big wide weekend. ROCK.