My Concert Review of ACDC with Axl Rose!

As a lot of you know from the members forum here (and posts on twitter and instagram), I recently went to see ACDC. As a lot of you know who come to my camshows I love me some good ACDC music. When I saw they were in Florida I figured what the hell… splurge on some tickets in the second row and go finally see them live. A small problem happened on the way to that event… the lead singer Brian Johnson and band suddenly announced he was not doing the show because of hearing loss. The concert was cancelled. I got the tickets through Vivid Seats (a concert ticket broker) who refused to refund the money. I thought it was pretty bad of them to do that because there wasn’t another show scheduled and watching ACDC without their real lead singer seemed like a waste of money…

A month or two after the cancelled event it was announced that Axl Rose of Guns & Roses was replacing Brian Johnson for the show. I am not the biggest Guns and Roses fan but figured what the hey… it might be a fun night out.  It was great to see Rubberdoll that night who also went to the show 🙂

Here’s my review…

First.. major props to Axl Rose for doing a great job of singing. He literally got off tour with Guns and Roses and showed up the same week to start up the US tour with ACDC. He was in tune, remembered all the lyrics and (which apparently is rare)…. exactly on time.  Amazing really that he was able to do that. The show was  over 2 hours if not closer to 2.5 hours so it’s not as if the band played a short set. Also major props to Angus Young who is 61 years old and playing and running around the stage like a teenager. They worked very hard to win over the audience and skeptics.

That being said.. it still wasn’t ACDC.  It was ACDC featuring Axl Rose. Is that a terrible thing? No… but it still isn’t ACDC. They were good, but not great. Maybe over time and with more shows the actual performance will be better. Yes… the songs were sung very well (Axl surprised me with his range) but something was missing. After every song the lights usually went out. There was almost no chatter in between the songs. The band barely communicated with each other on stage. Axl and Angus barely made eye contact. The show itself was spectacular with great video effects, cannon balls, long solos, confetti and a stage that moved up in the center of the audience. All that being said…. the band could have.. and in my opinion should have interacted more with the audience. Here is the first 9 minutes of the show shot with my camera… my ears were ringing for about 5 hours after the show. It was loud… no wonder Brian lost his hearing. I should have taken ear plugs….

http://https://youtu.be/hjZU7GZu-bo

I was stopped from dancing during one of the songs by a security guard who complained I was being filmed rather than the 15,000 cameras that were focused on the band in the crowd. Strange… here’s some of that footage…

Overall… I give it the Vicky Vette thumbs up … and 8/10 overall. A 10 for effort but points deducted for lack of interaction and communication with the audience.  What do you think of ACDC with Axl? Comment below! xo Vicky