AC/DC: Like comfy old shoes that fit all feet

The entire output of the Australian rockers played in a 15-hour marathon - in Oulu, where else?

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By Tomi Ervamaa in Oulu
     
      The young man is dressed properly for the occasion. Peaked cap, white shirt, striped tie, Australian school blazer.
      And shorts, of course, since it goes without saying they partner the Oz school blazer. Who cares that this is Oulu, Finland, and outside it is -15°C?
      We are in Club Teatria, the old Atria sausage factory that has now been converted into a mid-sized concert venue. The young man is wearing an Australian schoolboy outfit for the perfectly natural reason that it is the uniform of choice for AC/DC lead guitarist Angus Young.
     
Time and again, the man in shorts marches down to the front-of-stage area, spreads his arms in greeting, and yells something at us, but we cannot hear the message, as the band playing on stage is sufficiently loud to drown out this and anything else.
      We are at an AC/DC marathon. The location is perfect, for as anyone should know, Oulu is the home of the annual Air Guitar World Championships, and as anyone who knows anything of the noble art of shredding and air guitarism, many many AC/DC tunes rank high on the list of favourites.
      But this time the Gibson SGs are for real: a group of Finnish tribute bands and one imported all the way from America are playing their way through the entire output of AC/DC, one album at a time. This is a first in Finland, perhaps even a world première.
     
Things got under way on Saturday morning, and with breaks between acts included, the entire exercise takes 15 hours 16 minutes.
      Man-in-shorts stays the course courageously, but towards the end of the marathon his passage to the front of the stage becomes an increasingly meandering one.
     
This was supposed to be a charity benefit do: all the proceeds are to be passed on to the Finnish Association for Mental Health. However, the audience, slightly more than 650, fell short of what had been hoped for.
      But why AC/DC precisely?
      "I don't know of any other band that can so easily cross over the generational barriers", says event arranger Pertti Havas. "AC/DC are timeless."
      The Australian band has certainly been around a good long time. Formed in December 1973, it is also ideally suited to an all-ages marathon like this because its musical line has remained unchanged over the years. For instance The Rolling Stones have tried just about everything in their music from reggae to psychedelia, sometimes succeeding and sometimes flopping spectacularly. AC/DC do not believe in re-inventing themselves.
     
There were 16 acts on the bill in Oulu, most taking an album each. Then again, one might argue that the entire marathon could have been dealt with by playing one AC/DC track - for instance Hells Bells, or Highway to Hell, or Rock'n'Roll Ain't Noise Pollution, or even Thunderstruck. Then it would have been demonstrated that the entire AC/DC oeuvres had been heard.
      I decide to serve as a personal jury and to give the performers "Angus Young points" on a sliding scale from four to ten, based on their intensity and accuracy and general AC/DCness.
      Dirty Deeds Indeed come through with flying colours on an almost impossible mission: they succeed in their rendition of the AC/DC classic Let There Be Rock, the original version of which comes across like a rutting elk on speed. I give Dirty Deeds a 9 on the Angus Young scale.
     
At around 1 p.m., the Pohja Military Band comes on stage. The PMB is the biggest of the three military bands in the Finnish Defence Forces' Northern Command, and is based in Oulu. As one might surmise, this is the only outfit of the day whose approach to the music of AC/DC is pure avant-garde.
      The military band rip into the familiar riff from Rock'n'Roll Ain't Noise Pollution, a figure both brilliant and stupifyingly idiotic at the same time. Astonishingly, the soldiers almost capture the Zen Buddhist core of the piece. I give them an near-perfect 10- on the Angusometer.
     
American tribute band Live Wire, based in New York, have specialised in imitating AC/DC down to the minutest details. I cannot give their version of the Highway to Hell album an Angus rating, since I have to consider what the purpose of this kind of extreme precision mimicry is.
      "In 1982, I was a shy kid in high school, but I perfoemed Hells Bells at a school event. That's where it all started", explains Live Wire vocalist Chris Antos, 41. "Where we come from, people say that a young American is not a young American unless he has a copy of Back in Black" [AC/DC's seminal album from 1980, which opens with Hells Bells. It is the 5th largest-selling album in the US, and the 2nd biggest-seller of all time worldwide].
      This means that there is a nice niche market in the States for AC/DC tribute acts. Antos also sings in another AC/DC cover band beside Live Wire.
      "It's a band called TNT. They have a problem: their previous vocalist could do Brian Johnston, but he couldn't do Bon Scott. I can do both of them", says Antos.
      Bon Scott was the band's legendary vocalist and front man from 1974 until his death in 1980. Brian Johnson has fronted AC/DC since 1980.
     
I suppose the idea was not that anyone would actually sit through the marathon from start to finish.
      I tell the concert organiser Havas that this is exactly what I intend to do.
      "Barking mad", he says.
      Since the proceeds from the gig are to be passed on to the Finnish Association for Mental Health, staff from the local Oulu crisis centre are selling T-shirts. I suggest ever so gently that might not listening to AC/DC non-stop for fifteen hours be hazardous to one's mental health.
      "That's why we are here", says a representative from the centre.
     
It is now six in the evening. I ask myself if I am getting bored.
      In a way, yes, I am. Getting numb. And yet the question of whether you can get too much of AC/DC is as absurd as wondering if you can get tired of asphalt if you live in a city. That's it, of course - we are talking here about some pretty fundamental matters.
     
Ten o'clock. Now I must admit: I'm getting tired. It is hard to tell one band from another.
      Was it Catatone, or was it His Infernal Balls that played the entire For Those About To Rock album?
      Yep. Catatone it was. They score 8+ on the Angus Young scale.
      I notice one characteristic of AC/DC: the band's music is quite easily playable by almost anyone who knows which end of a guitar is which. And yet at the same time it is extraordinarily difficult to play the music in such a way that the interpretation grasps the Zen essence of the band or alternatively says anything intrinsically new.
     
It is now 02:24 by my watch. A combo named Sweet Freaks (scoring a creditable 9- on the Angus Young scale) comes to the end of the Stiff Upper Lip album from 2000. We listeners can leave the old sausage packing plant and go out into the fresh night air.
      I'm a bit dizzy, but it doesn't feel bad.
      I don't believe that listening to tribute bands doing AC/DC covers for 15 hours and 16 minutes is harmful to one's mental well-being.
      AC/DC are rather like a comfortable old pair of shoes that fit perfectly on the feet. They don't chafe, however long you wear them.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 20.2.2006


Previously in HS International Edition:
  AC/DC play Falluja: Washington´s Weapon of Oz Distraction (27.4.2004)

Links:
  AC/DC (Wikipedia)
  Club Teatria, Oulu

TOMI ERVAMAA / Helsingin Sanomat
tomi.ervamaa@hs.fi