Cool Cherry Cream

Friday, November 7, 2008 at Rogers Centre in Toronto, Ontario | Photos

AC/DC’s not one of my favourite bands, but they’re my brother and my dad’s all-time favourite, so it was inevitable that I’d be seeing them one day. I can’t really help but like AC/DC considering I know most of their songs, if only by hearing them through my brother’s bedroom door and in my dad’s car for about as long as I can remember.

Some people might give AC/DC grief since they are pretty gimmicky. I mean, really — even Black Sabbath have songs that aren’t about hell! Hell this, hell that, I’m going to hell and I don’t mind because they’ve got big bells. Fire, thunder, hell, gambling, fat chicks, guns, wars, explosions, sex, sex, sex. A guys’ band? You betcha.

We got there at about 8:20 or so, which was much later than we were expecting, because traffic was absolutely terrible, and for no apparent reason. I know my dad and brother were pretty stressed out about it, but I knew that since the opening band was supposed to go on at 7:30, the absolute earliest AC/DC would be on was 8:30, but they usually round it up and start right on the hour anyway. They actually started at about 8:50, I think. Anyway, while we were waiting, we couldn’t believe how huge Rogers Centre is! I haven’t been there for a long time, not since The Rolling Stones, and I didn’t remember it being like that at all. Apparently the Stones’ stage was much bigger, which I guess made the place seem smaller. But don’t be fooled, Rogers Centre is enormous.

Their show started off with a video. Hey, there’s a train. Oh, hahahaha they have a song about a train! Woo! There’s Angus! And he’s a devil! Hahahaha they have songs about devils too. Oh, lookie there, it’s Brian Johnson, riding in the train. Hey, where’d she come from, she just popped up from — oooohhhhhhhh. (Ohhahahaha, look, I said “come”). (My brother later informed me that he thought it was funny BJ was getting a BJ, and he was right).

Anyway, I kind of felt like I was watching a cheesy 70s cartoon porno as two short-skirted cartoon chicks come (did it again!) in and seduce Angus and tie him up and take over the train and have lots of fun pushing and pulling levers towards their mouths for no apparent reason. As I was watching the video, awkwardly standing next to the rest of my family, I thought “ohhhhh, ‘Shoot To Thrill’, I get it now!”.

The band came went out on the stage and started with their new song “Rock ‘N’ Roll Train”. I’ve probably heard all of their new songs at some point or another, but that’s the only one I’ve heard enough to really like it. The French guy singing it on YouTube probably played some part in that though.

When they did “Thunderstruck”, Angus started doing the duck-walk or what-have-you across the stage and they showed it on the screen — from below the stage! This would be no surprise to an AC/DC fan, for that is what I’m told they do in the video for “Thunderstruck”. Nonetheless, it looked pretty awesome. My dad commented afterwards that he was surprised they didn’t do that more often, and while I agree it looked amazing, it’s nice that they only did it once. It didn’t become gimmicky. It was like when I saw this Beatles tribute band, and “George” suddenly broke out into a little dance like he does in AHDN and I was like “bwhaha! that’s hilarious!” but then he kept doing it and doing it and doing it… AC/DC didn’t overdo it, and for that, I (oh ho ho!) salute them.

The video coverage was quite refreshing after what I saw at Hawk Rocks the Park. Our seats were alright — to the right of the stage, second (third?) level, and I could tell who was who by looking at the stage — so I didn’t watch the video that much. There was one part where the camera came up from behind a spotlight on the ground and onto Brian which looked pretty cool. There was another time though where the camera was on Brian and I then imagine someone in the control room (box?) went “okay, cut to Brian” and the little guy went “but it’s already on Brian” and the big guy went “CUT TO BRIAN!”. So yeah, that looked stupid, but I only noticed it once.

Later, as “Black Ice” (another new song) ends, my brother tells me to get out the camera for the next song. He had the whole set list pretty much memorized and I’d assume he had seen most of the concert on YouTube already, so he knew what was to… going to happen. He’d also relayed some of this information to me previously and so I knew that at some point in the show, Angus was going to strip and/or moon the audience. I gave my brother a funny look and said “I hope this isn’t for what I think it’s for” and he told me adamantly “I’m not gay!”.

I used to really like “The Jack” (the next song) when I was younger, but now it doesn’t really do anything for me. Not because it’s “ruined” by sexual connotations I was previously unaware of, but just because the song’s just kind of meh in general. Though it was sort of funny to see an entire crowd yelling “Jack! Jack! Jack! Jack! Jack! Jack! Jack!” over and over.

Anyway, this was of course the stripping song, so I snapped away happily, watching the 53-year-old man strip through the safety of my pixellated camera screen. As he became increasingly more nude, I found I wasn’t getting any good shots (ha). The climax (ha) came (ha) when he pulled down his pants to reveal he was wearing AC/DC boxers. I could tell he was going to do it, so I blindly snapped one last time, hoping I would get something, and to my surprise, was finally greeted with a clear picture, right at the right moment. That never happens.

Unfortunately, I failed to continue this lucky streak as Brian Johnson swung on Hell’s Bell. Later, during “T.N.T.”, they had fire coming out behind them, but it just came in puffs and didn’t make for incredible pictures either.

They had a giant train behind them for most of show, and it looked pretty cool throughout. I also noticed AC/DC had a particularly colourful light selection, especially considering all their songs are about hell and black, and you would expect a lot of red, which is terrible for taking pictures (as is blue, purple, and green. Come to think of it, pink, yellow, and orange aren’t all that great either. White’s about it, or any very light colour, for those of you wanting to take concert pictures — none of this holds if you’re lucky enough to be up close though, and the colours can really make the picture).

Anyway, near the end of the show, my brother once again informed me it was time to get out the camera as they started into “Whole Lotta Rosie”, and the back of the stage was filled with a large scantily-clad blow-up woman presumably named Rosie. (“That was a slightly less gay reason” I told my brother.)

At one point, Brian was on the left part of the stage below Rosie and I saw him look at the audience, then look up at Rosie, then back and the audience and shake his head. I don’t know quite what that exchange was about, but I’m sure it was amusingly dirty.

During the last song before the encore, “Let There Be Rock”, Angus went to the end of the catwalk and went up on a circular high-rise platform. I snapped a few pictures and as he started back to the stage, put the camera away. At the last second, I decided to take it out again and took one more (blurry) picture, even though I thought to myself “ah, don’t bother. He’s just running down the catwalk”.

That last snapshot was the death of my photography that night. There was a woman walking up and down our aisle every five minutes of so, which earned her the unspoken nickname of “Camera Nazi” from me, though she had never given me a second look, despite the fact that I’d taken about two hundred pictures through the show. But now, another person came over and told me “you have to put that away; I’ll take your batteries”. I nodded and said okay and put the camera away, since I knew there were only two songs left anyway. Little did I know, this camera has built in batteries, and I know not what would have happened if I’d risked it and continued to click.

Anyway, another hint for people taking concert photos — ‘less you’re on the floor in the mob, don’t sit near the aisle if at all possible when taking pictures. The two times I’ve been asked to put the camera away, I was sitting in the aisle seat or one away from the aisle. They won’t go through the effort of walking past other people to get you to put away a harmless little point-and-shoot camera.

They ended the encore with “For Those About To Rock”. They had a couple of cannons on the stage, which went off whenever Brian yelled “fire!” or “shoot!” or whatever the lyrics called for him to say. I didn’t really care for this part, as the speed of sound is slower than the speed of light, and so the timing wasn’t quite right. They were also pretty dinky cannons.

There are two things that stood out to me about this concert. For one, AC/DC has the cleanest stage I have ever seen. Usually there are wires and stuff all around, but with this show, it was just so refreshingly simple and clean. My brother tells me it’s because they don’t use any guitar pedals, they just play.

More importantly than that, if AC/DC’s show isn’t what you call non-stop rock, I don’t know what is. They didn’t talk much between songs, which I usually like, but they didn’t need to. The riffs, the songs are just so memorable and catchy, and even if you don’t know any of their songs, you know them by the end of the first chorus. They just go-go-go! the whole time and don’t stop for a ballad or some other lame slow song. If they want to sing about a chick they love, they’ll tell you about how fat she is or how good she is in bed. And really, that’s what rock’s about — not “oh, your eyes” or “oh, your soul”, unless your eyes have got fire in ‘em and your soul’s a-rockin’.