When my 22nd birthday was rounding the corner, my dad sent me a text:
“Erik, what do you want for your birthday?”
I told him the customary things that a guy my age wants: video games, sports jerseys of my favorite athletes and t-shirts of my favorite bands. But there was one last thing I wanted, and that was tickets to see AC/DC on the opening date of their United States tour supporting their latest album: 2020’s “Power Up.”
I got the customary dad response, “I’ll see what I can do,” as tickets for this tour were a pretty penny, and demand for these tickets was ridiculously high.
About a month or so passed by without knowing what was going on until a few days before I departed back home for Christmas break. Suddenly, my dad sent me a screenshot of concert seats with a caption beneath that says “GET READY TO ROCK” in all caps.
Ever since they announced their North American tour, I wanted to go regardless of how these veteran Aussie rockers have been affected by age. If you look up rock and roll in the dictionary, the picture right next to it should be the AC/DC logo.
As we departed from Eau Claire wearing my AC/DC Power Up tour t-shirt and flannel, I was getting giddy at the idea of seeing Angus Young shred his guitar live.
I’ve seen the videos of him in concert doing his patented duck walk, playing his guitar on his back and practically running an entire marathon during performances, and now I was going to get to see it live.
Flash forward to being inside of U.S. Bank Stadium. I felt a little bit out of place age-wise as it seemed the average audience member was older than 55, but honestly I didn’t mind since the music was bringing us here and not an AARP convention.
Seeing how massive the stadium was, I wondered if this place would even sell out. However, as the opening act The Pretty Reckless were closing out their set, there was a massive wave of people trying to get into the pit seating area, and trying to get a bite to eat from the concession stand was more of a challenge.
As I was finishing off my soda, the lights went down and the video board played their entrance video of a race car driving to US Bank Stadium. I instantly felt a jolt of adrenaline as I heard their drummer count off the intro to “If You Want Blood (You Got It).”
For the next two-and-a-half hours, I stood and banged my head in awe to the phenomenal musicianship and unmistakable tunes that any casual listener will recognize.
Whether it be “Back In Black,” “Thunderstruck,” “Hells Bells” or “TNT,” AC/DC brought the goods that night. As much of a dynamo that Angus Young was that night at 70 years old, their lead singer, Brian Johnson, impressed me.
For a guy who’s 77 years old and had supposedly lost his “fastball” in terms of his voice, Brian Johnson sounded incredible despite the below-par mixing job of the in-house engineers. When they played “Shoot to Thrill,” which is an incredibly demanding song vocally, I didn’t think he could pull it off.
But when they played those vocally demanding songs like “Shoot to Thrill” or “You Shook Me All Night Long, ” Brian Johnson pulled through with relative ease. The real highlight of the show that night was when they dove into their 1977 classic “Let There Be Rock”.
When I say that Angus practically ran a marathon that night, he probably got most of those miles in during “Let There Be Rock.” He played about a 20-minute extended guitar solo during which he ended up on his back on a riser that went about 30 feet in the air where confetti got shot into the audience.
During most of the show, my jaw was on the floor in between headbanging and singing along. I completely froze in awe and started getting a little misty-eyed knowing that this could be the last tour they go on as a band.
What better time to see them than now? It seemed Angus Young didn’t miss a single note, Brian Johnson’s voice sounded better than it has in years and the rhythm section of Chris Chaney on bass, Matt Laug on drums and Angus Young’s nephew Stevie Young on rhythm guitar were tighter than a rubber band.
While I’ve seen bands like the Foo Fighters close their shows out with “Everlong” or Iron Maiden close their show out with “Hallowed Be Thy Name,” I’m convinced there is no better closing song to a show than “For Those About to Rock (We Salute You).”
The message of the song is quite clear as a salute to the diehard fans: that their love for the band is reciprocated by the band. But what made it even better were the pyrotechnics of replicated Civil War cannons that they shot out every time Brian Johnson said “shoot” or “fire.”
When I tell you those cannon shots are loud, my hearing, to this day, from the show two weeks ago is still muffled, where I have to tell people to speak up. It doesn’t help that I work at a bar on weekends, so a two-and-a-half hour rock concert piled on top of that will make things worse.
Anyways, I salute you AC/DC, for giving me one of the biggest spectacles of rock music that I have seen in a while.
Mikalofsky can be reached at [email protected].
