They warm up engines (and sell tickets) Guns n’Roses, Metallica, Rammstein, Iron Maiden… But not all giants have an urgent need to hit the road and the most notorious example is AC/DC. When the Australians released their latest album, ‘Power up’, in November 2020, we were in a pandemic up to our eyebrows, and the good news opened a chink of light in the celestial vault: “does that mean that the return of the tours, in general, and yours in particular?”, I asked myself with that innocence.
I called the promoter of his concerts in Spain for a lifetime (that is, since 1981), Gay Mercader, and he spoiled the party for me. “Calm down, there is nothing at all. That they release the album has nothing to do with the fact that there is going to be a tour. Do not be impatient”. Clear, Since when have AC/DC relied on an album to fill ‘arenas’ and stadiums? If they gave the album the green light, it would have more to do with the logic of Sony Music, but they are never in a position to launch their complex and expensive setup if everything is not tied up and well tied up.
If in 2022 the big ‘tours’ began to wake up, and that the covid was still prowling, this 2023 will be the one of the great avalanche: there is urgency among the promoters and appetite accumulated in the public, bordering on anxiety in certain cases. It reflects the spectacular escalation of concert prices and, above all, of the ‘vip’, ‘platinum’ or ‘golden circle’ bands. Categories to which AC/DC, historically, have resisted for ethical reasons and attention to his worker ancestry. In a scenario that points to certain saturation of stages and pockets, and with the economic fog Still hovering on the near horizon, there’s no rush at Angus Young and company HQ.
They know that when the day comes to announce the ‘tour’ (the first since 2016), the locations will fly and it won’t matter too much when they released the last album. The campaign may be titled ‘Power up’ even though we are in 2024 or 2025, what does it matter, or adopt any other slogan. 50th anniversary tour, attending to the release of his debut album, ‘High voltage’ (1975)? There is speculation about that variable, but Gay reminds me that It does not go with AC / DC to sign up for the bandwagon of the ephemeris. They never have.
And after all, it’s very rock’n’roll to see a band of that caliber operating on their own free will, unimpressed by what others are doing or by the stresses the live music business experiences. Blessed cockiness.