AC/DC for summer 2015 tour?

AC/DC have penciled in Australian dates for either late 2015 or before March 2016, according to reports from the band’s global album launch in the NSW outback on the weekend.

Between 1,000 and 1500 fans journeyed to the country town of The Rock to hear Rock Or Bust in its entirety during the town’s market day. A Sony Music Entertainment executive told them pre-ordering the album would put them in the running for tickets to the shows “late next year or before March in 2016.”

Rock Or Bust is out in Australia on November 28 through Alberts/Sony Music Entertainment Australia four days before its global release.

It was the biggest turnout for The Rock, which is 500 km west of Sydney. The number of stall holders tripled as a result of the AC/DC tie-in. Fears by locals that the 40 degree heat would keep fans away proved unfounded when they flooded into town early in the morning before the playback began at midday.

Councillor John Paterson told local media that the song Rock Or Bust “will be a new anthem for our little town here at The Rock.”

There have been no hints from the band of specific tour dates. Guitarist Angus Young anticipates the show will have “lots of bells and whistles. It’s always good if you’ve got a few surprises, if you’ve got a bit of a spectacle. There will be a lot of good rock music; that much we will say.”

AC/DC are pondering drummer Phil Rudd’s future with them. They have ‘fessed up that sessions for Rock Or Bust were difficult because of Rudd.

“He’s got himself in a pickle,” Young said in his forthright manner, He made it clear that the tour will happen with or without him. In one interview he was emphatic, “If we're going forward we've gotta get something resolved."

A two-day video shoot in London on October 3 and 4 for the Rock Or Bust and Play Ball clip features fill-in Welsh skinsman Bob Richards (currently in Son of Man, previously with Man, Asia and Shy). Rudd had apparently been in London but had to rush back to New Zealand on a personal matter. He is not in the official new promotional band photograph which features new guitarist Stevie Young, and which was taken during the same time.

Rudd faces court on Thursday (November 27) on charges of possession of methamphetamine and cannabis after police raided his waterfront home in the coastal town of Tauranga.

There have already been two listening parties overseas for Rock Or Bust. In New York, fans were treated to Angus (in blue jeans and black sweater), Brian Johnson and producer Brendan O’Brien discussing the album in person.