Angus Young unsure of AC/DC’s future

Were the Rock Or Bust dates late last year the last time Australia was to see AC/DC in live action?

After blistering shows through Europe with Axl Rose out front, there were reports that the Guns ‘N’ Roses singer was eager to go into the studios to do dirty deeds done dirt cheap with Akka-Dakka. On stage, Rose had the vocal range to duplicate both Bon Scott and Brian Johnson’s styles.

Apparently when they first got together to rehearse in Atlanta, he proved such a fan that he even brought along a song like Touch Too Much from 1979’s Highway To Hell album to include in the set – only to be sheepishly told they’d never played it live and probably couldn’t remember it.

However in a new interview with Rolling Stone, guitarist Angus Young was uncertain if the band would last after a 10-date run of US shows which start on August 27 in Greenboro, North Carolina, and finishes on September 20 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Quizzed about their collective future, Young replied, “At this point, I don’t know. We were committed to finishing the tour. Who knows what I’ll feel after? When you sign on and say, ‘I’m gonna do this and that,’ it’s always good to say at the end of it, ‘I’ve done all I said I would do’.

“That was always the idea, especially when we were younger. Me, Malcolm, Bon. You had to show up and be on time. You’d be playing in a pub in the afternoon. Then late at night, you’d be playing a club. You got into that habit: ‘If we don’t play, we don’t eat.’”

Young is the last man standing for one of hard rock’s most influential acts. He formed the band in Sydney in 1973 with brother Malcolm, and ruled it with the iron hand needed to stay on top while madness reigned below.

Band members have come and gone (and in drummer Phil Rudd’s case) also returned.

But the last two years has been a blow for the band, which on their 2015 North American run, was making an average of $4 million a night and pulling audiences of an average of 50,000. The earlier Black Ice world tour, which included 168 shows over two years, grossed more than $441 million and was the fourth highest-grossing tour of all time.

Malcolm left in September 2014 owing to an onset of dementia, forcing him to relearn songs he once knew intimately each day for that night’s show.

In November 2014, Phil Rudd was forced to drop out due to home detention over drug and kill threats, and also to what Angus alleged was unreliability during the current album’s recording sessions.

In March 2016, singer Brian Johnson had to pull out of touring because of hearing issues.

In July, bassist Cliff Williams, who joined in 1977, said he was quitting recording and touring after the US dates wound up.

Presumably, a lot of AC/DC fans will be, physically or in spirit, in the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia on September 20 in case it proves to be the final ever show by one of the greatest rock bands of all time.