AC/DC helps 60 Minutes reach 526,000 metro viewers

Angus Young and Brian Johnson’s first interview on Australian free-to-air
television helped 60 Minutes reach an overnight metro audience of 526,000.

The show screened after Channel 9’s The Block, which had an audience of 977,000 for the main episode and 1.065 million for the room winner reveal.

60 Minutes won the 8:30pm timeslot against the ABC’s Roadkill (351,000), Channel 7’s Crime Investigation Australia: Most Famous (337,000), and Channel 10’s FBI: Most Wanted. 

“People were always willing to lend a hand.” @ACDC are the ‘battlers from Burwood’ that became Rock ‘n Roll legends. Angus Young tells #60Mins that it’s thanks to the support of the community when he and brother Malcolm Young were growing up, that the band is where it is today. pic.twitter.com/YXL5dmU4pk

— 60 Minutes Australia (@60Mins) November 16, 2020

The appearance on the Nine Network show was part of a global push on the triumphant return of their 17th studio album Power Up, set for high debuts on charts around the world.

Despite the duo’s traditional wisecracking through the interview, there were sombre moments when they spoke about the late guitarist Malcolm Young’s leadership and his continued legacy on the new album.

Many of its riffs and song ideas came from 2008 when the Young brothers worked on Black Ice.

In the years after, Angus would push to work on the riffs, and Malcolm would reply there was plenty of time for it.

Power Up is the first album for Angus without Malcolm who roped him into his new band in Sydney in 1973.

On Malcolm’s retirement from the band in 2014 as the effects of dementia took hold, Angus recalled how despite his advanced state of decline in the nursing home, Malcolm got a kick from his playing guitar for him.

Malcolm passed away in November 2017, aged 64.

“I think the worst part’s the decline,” Angus, now 65, suggested to 60 Minutes.

“That’s the hard part, because of how you knew him and then to see that that was gone.

“I would say, even to the end, he was still… if I was there, he had a big smile. And I think that was probably… that always gave me a kind of joy.

“Even though he was in that state, that was always the joy.”

Young also recalled how Malcolm would suggest, “We got all these cannons, couldn’t we shoot you out of one?”

Johnson wasn’t quite sure their leader had his tongue in cheek with the idea.

“He had me up on a wrecking ball swinging over the audience, that was scary.”

AC/DC overcame the death of their singer and main lyricist Bon Scott by going on to make their biggest hit, with ‘Back In Black’.

With Power Up, Angus steadfastly got the band together after a tumultuous period during which Johnson left after losing his hearing in his left ear, drummer Phil Rudd faced legal troubles in New Zealand, and bassist Cliff Williams quit because of ill-health.

The path back to Power Up began when the estranged band reunited in Sydney for Malcolm’s funeral.

Johnson had overcome his hearing issues after two and a half years of treatment with in-ear technology specialist Stephen Ambrose, the creator of an in-ear monitor called ADEL.

Power Up is expected to shift between 105,000 and 115,000 equivalent album units in its first week of release in the US. Most of these would be in physical format.

It would be battling for top spot with Future and Lil Uzi Vert’s Pluto x Baby Pluto which is forecast to move 110,000 and 120,000 album equivalent units in its first week, mostly through streaming services.

AC/DC’s previous album Rock Or Bust from late 2014 debuted at #3 in the US with 172,000 copies first week.

One of the formats for Power Up is the deluxe box which activates with a flashing neon AC/DC logo and the opening bars of ‘Shot In The Dark’.

It comes with a full CD and 180-gram vinyl, a 20 page booklet and a USB charging cable allowing the box to remain powered up and on display on the mantelpiece.