Dude, Where's My Black Ice Tourdate?

So AC/DC finally announced their Black Ice Tour dates but your city was left out, huh? Well, take heart because you are not alone. They haven't announced any dates in Florida yet, either, and Brian Johnson and Cliff Williams live here!

Also, we all need to remember that this Fall schedule of shows is only the first leg of AC/DC's 18-month long world tour. So let's be patient and see what the boys have in store for the rest of the best fans in the world, eh?

Australian fans can take some comfort, though, as almost unnoticed in the recent news was a small item written by Paul Cashmere about AC/DC's plans for a trip back home to Australia:

"AC/DC will perform in Australia in 2009 at Telstra Dome in Melbourne and ANZ Stadium in Sydney."

No doubt AccaDacca will hit several more cities down under as well as visit all their great fans in New Zealand in the coming year, too.

Of course, some longtime fans have never seen the band perform live in person. Such is the case of Mike Grant, who writes about his AC/DC story in "That's The Way I Want My Rock N Roll!"

If you still want to read more about fans and AC/DC today, I suggest you check out "She's Got Balls" at The Soundtrack Of My Life. It's a brief, but poignant story about how one guy got introduced to AC/DC music.

Speaking of AC/DC's music, it would be remiss of me not to mention Rolling Stone's Fall preview of the Black Ice album. Though there's not that much to it, there is some good background information about how the new music was made from producer, Brendan O'Brien.



Of course, Black Ice has been compared to Back In Black a thousand times already and it hasn't even been released yet so, one has to wonder if it will really be that good? I guess time will tell...

By the way, what's your take on War Machine versus Rock N Roll Train? Do you favor one track over the other now that you've heard them both more than a few times? I hope you'll leave your opinions in the comments section below. I'd also be interested to know what other fans think the song War Machine is all about. Does it have anything to do with the war in Iraq? Has AC/DC made another political track like Burnin' Alive from the Ballbreaker album?


George Young and Harry Vanda
Lastly, for today, Easy Fever provides another history lesson for AC/DC fans who want to know more about the roots of our favorite band. For those that don't know already, The Easybeats were Australia's answer to The Beatles and two of their leading members were George Young and Harry Vanda, who later went on to produce most of the classic AC/DC albums of the 70's.

Keep rockin, Jon

Rolling Stone Likes The New AC/DC Album???

Fans of this blog probably realize that I think the opinions of Rolling Stone Magazine are virtually worthless when they're reviewing AC/DC's (or anybody's) music. However, they posted an early mini-review yesterday of the new album, Black Ice, in their latest issue that has shocked and awed many an AC/DC fan on the interwebs.

Sweet vindication! Last year in this column, AC/DC singer Brian Johnson promised that they’d tour in 2008. Well, he wasn’t kidding. Soon they’ll begin rehearsals in a secret location, before hitting U.S. arenas in late fall. We heard this news at the Sony HQ on New York’s Madison Avenue, before hearing all 15 tracks of the band’s earthshaking new Black Ice, recorded in Vancouver in just eight weeks with Brendan O’Brien. On it, Brian wails about skies on fire, blood in his eyes, storms raging, lightning flashes, hard rain and pretty women. Angus Young shreds throughout (we dig his slide work on “Decibel”), and the rhythm cats — Malcolm Young, Cliff Williams and Phil Rudd — are solid as a rock. The first single is “Rock ‘N Roll Train”; “She Likes Rock ‘N Roll” will be a stripper anthem; and “War Machine” (our favorite) will tear you to pieces.

So what does this really mean? Is the new album kickass like Back In Black kind of kickass or is this just hype intended to sell magazines to middle-aged AC/DC fans? I guess we'll have to wait and see for ourselves but the new songs certainly sound promising, don't they?

Well, I guess they should be awesome songs considering all the time it took the band to produce a new album (8 years!).

Anyway, the song title "Rock 'N Roll Train" is now back on the table, apparently, though Undercover News said earlier it would be called "Runaway Train."

Perhaps some lucky fan who participated in yesterday's video shoot in London will fill us in on what song they heard so as to clear up this confusion? I hope so...

Btw, Rolling Stone certainly liked the song "War Machine" which makes me wonder if the lyrics to it reflect some sort of leftist leaning, anti-Bush kind of message.

Hmm, wouldn't that be interesting if AC/DC got a little political like they did when they wrote "Burnin' Alive" which was apparently about the Waco incident?

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In other AC/DC News, I've neglected to mention that a Director's Cut of the "No Bull" DVD is coming to the Blu-Ray on September 9th which will also include the following, according to Undercover News.

The new version of the disc will include the previously unreleased live versions of `Cover You In Oil` from Gothenburg, Sweden and `Down Payment Blues` recorded in Daytona, USA.

The Blu-Ray disc has also been updated to include `Angusvision` for the tracks `Shoot To Thrill`, `Hail Caesar`, `Rock and Roll Ain`t Noise Pollution` and `You Shook Me All Night Long`. On these tracks, you`ll see what Angus Young was seeing.

There's a nice promo site set up for it on ACDCrocks.com right now if you'd like to pay them a visit, btw.

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Lastly, a Swedish publication has posted a rumor (supposedly from someone in the band's production company) that AC/DC will play Ullevi Stadium in Gothenburg, Sweden sometime during the Summer of 2009. Read it for yourself here in Swedish or in Google-translated English.

Keep rockin, Jon