2016.05.08 - Reuters - AC/DC's first concert with new member Axl Rose (& related articles)

AC/DC's first concert with new member Axl Rose

LISBON - - Guns N’ Roses front man Axl Rose made his debut with AC/DC while standing in for lead singer Brian Johnson at a concert in Lisbon on Saturday, as a part of the band’s world tour.

AC/DC, known for songs such as “Highway to Hell” and “Back in Black”, had to reschedule dates on the U.S. leg of the “Rock or Bust” tour in March after Johnson, 68, was advised by doctors to stop touring “or risk total hearing loss”.

Rose was announced as a replacement a month later.

Fans from around Europe traveled to Lisbon to watch the concert, giving Rose the thumbs up.

“You couldn’t even tell the difference in the vocals,” one Portuguese fan said. “You just have to like and love it.”

Review of the first show in Lisbon (May 7); Rolling Stone, May 8, 2016:
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Axl Rose Triumphs at AC/DC Debut in Lisbon
Seated singer honors band's classic sound as 'Rock or Bust' tour resumes

By Mark Sutherland

AC/DC must be starting to think someone up there doesn’t like them. A catalogue of misfortune has beset this most enduring of hard-rock bands during the past two years. First, founding guitarist Malcolm Young stepped down from the band due to dementia. Then drummer Phil Rudd left in a haze of criminal charges. Most recently, singer Brian Johnson had to quit touring or face total hearing loss, while the band faced a backlash from fans unhappy at the manner of his departure and/or his superstar replacement: Axl Rose, singer of the newly reunited Guns N’ Roses, and a man who recently faced some adversity of his own in the form of a fractured foot.

Rose just doesn’t seem very AC/DC somehow. Like Johnson, the singer keeps a hat jammed to his head at all times, but there the similarities were expected to end.

Yet Rose actually seemed happy to play a different role here. From his opening greeting of “Nice to meet you!” – just five minutes later than billed – he was a deferential and pleasant presence between songs and an energized, brooding one during them. He remained seated throughout the main set, his leg still encased in a brace, but even his perch was more low-key than during the recent Guns N’ Roses shows: It resembled a humble office chair that had been jazzed up at the last minute with a few lumps of metal and some devil horns.

But while Rose’s body might be ailing, his voice remained in great shape. From the opening salvo of “Rock or Bust,” “Shoot to Thrill” and “Hell Ain’t a Bad Place to Be,” it was clear that, musically at least, the GN’R man is a great fit for AC/DC.

True, he missed a couple of cues and on more recent material seemed unsure of whether to stick to his own trademark wail or give it more Johnson-esque rasp. But in the company of guitarists Angus and Stevie Young, bassist Cliff Williams and drummer Chris Slade – sounding as tight as any lineup on the planet – Rose still seemed to be reaping the rewards of what he has joked were his first-ever proper rehearsals.

Rose seemed particularly at home on Bon Scott-era classics such as “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap” and “High Voltage” and happy to defer to Angus Young’s all-action, duckwalking showmanship. Once Rose is mobile again – and that can’t be far off, as he walked on and off the stage between encores – that dynamic may change, but for now, Young handled the heavy lifting, leaving Rose free to enjoy himself.

And enjoy himself he did, self-deprecatingly introducing “Shot Down in Flames” as “a song they wrote about my life story”; leading the chants of “Angus! Angus!”; changing the lyrics of “You Shook Me All Night Long” to “Knocking me out with those Portuguese thighs”; and gawping at the band’s enduring, if unimaginative props (a huge bell for “Hells Bells,” an even bigger inflatable woman for “Whole Lotta Rosie”).

After a spectacular closing version of “Let There Be Rock,” featuring Angus writhing around on a hydraulic platform as confetti bombs were blown around by the ever-stronger gusts from the waterfront, Rose returned to say goodbye to resounding cheers from the faithful.

And if the main set hadn’t already won over the crowd, the final volley of “Highway to Hell,” the rarely heard “Riff Raff” (a GN’R live staple, performed with Angus himself at Coachella, though Saturday was the first time AC/DC had played it live since ’96) and a cannon-and-pyro strewn “For Those About to Rock (We Salute You)” certainly did.



Credit: PATRICIA DE MELO MOREIRA/Getty

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-live-reviews/axl-rose-triumphs-at-ac-dc-debut-in-lisbon-64330/

Review in the Guardian, same date:
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AC/DC review – Axl Rose brings menace as rock legends pull off a triumph

5/5 stars

The Guns N’ Roses singer might have been confined to a ‘throne’, but he delivered a masterly first appearance fronting AC/DC

By Michael Hann

AC/DC couldn’t really have handled the departure of their singer Brian Johnson much worse – a curt statement on their website announcing he could no longer tour, owing to hearing loss, and their intention to continue with a stand-in – short of announcing a compulsory redundancy programme for all Florida-resident geordies with a penchant for caps. Their fanbase, normally unquestioningly loyal, reacted with unexpected irritation: refunds for upcoming shows were demanded (and given), and many – me included – questioned whether the band should continue at all.

When they announced that Johnson’s short-term replacement would be Guns N’ Roses singer Axl Rose – a man for whom reliability is not a byword – eyebrows were further raised. Given AC/DC’s legendary efficiency, and Rose’s equally legendary tardiness in taking the stage, it seemed as if it could be a case of the irresistible force meeting the immovable object. And then Rose broke a metatarsal, meaning he would be chairbound on stage. AC/DC, a band who care what people think of them rather less than anyone except, perhaps, Donald Trump, evidently decided in the wake of all these disasters that they needed to win people back. And so, for this first show with Rose, writers – the Guardian included – have been flown in to Portugal as the band attempt to prove they are still a worthwhile concern, even with guitarist Angus Young and bassist Cliff Williams the only remaining core members.

Rose’s arrival makes this show the first AC/DC gig in years – certainly since Johnson replaced the late Bon Scott in 1980 – at which no one knows exactly what to expect. Its triumph is that it does exactly what one would expect, but rather better than one had dared hope for. Rose being confined to his throne on castors – he looks for all the world like a hard-rock Davros – is a rare downside to his performance.

The triumph lies in the renditions of the songs AC/DC wrote and recorded when Scott was still alive. Whereas the Johnson-era material tended towards boozy bonhomie, Scott was often a malevolently misanthropic writer and singer, concealing a slightly terrifying rage behind apparent good humour. Rose, who is familiar with both malevolence and misanthropy, delivers those songs perfectly, giving them fresh menace. Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap loses its cartoonish aspect, and becomes the bar-room chatter of a psychopath; he introduces Shot Down in Flames as “the story of my life” and convinces you it’s true. His voice, too, is brilliant: no matter how high, every note is hit, and sustained. And he keeps it up for two hours.

He seems more relaxed on the Scott songs, perhaps because of the manner of his replacing Johnson. Johnson’s songs are delivered just fine, but there’s a slight sense he’s being a little too reverent. He’s spoken of wanting to do justice to Johnson’s work, and maybe he’s concerned with not imprinting his own personality over the songs. That’s true, too, of his rapport with the crowd. Johnson was unfailingly good humoured – not much of an anecdote teller, but ready to rouse the rabble. Rose confines himself to a few softly spoken words between songs and a few all-but-inaudible thank yous afterwards. For this show, with this much at stake, you expect him to be the cheerleader for AC/DC, but he refuses to take the role.

Nevertheless, he compensates for the sometimes erratic sound – a fierce wind blowing off the Tagus following a day of horrendous rain bashes the music hither and thither – and perhaps even inadvertently outshines Young, who sounds a tiny bit approximate in the fiddly intro to Thunderstruck. For AC/DC Kremlinologists, though, the telling moments come with the incorporation of two songs from the 1978 album Powerage that had been out of live circulation for a long while – Rock’n’Roll Damnation and a thrillingly brutal Riff Raff. “I never shot nobody / Don’t even carry a gun,” Rose snarls, with complete conviction. “I ain’t done nothing wrong / Just having fun.”

Carry on like this, and those wondering whether AC/DC are still worth going to see this summer should have no worries: they, too, will be having fun.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/may/08/acdc-review-axl-rose-lisbon-first-gig

Review in Classic Rock, same date:
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AC/DC with Axl Rose: The First Review

By Fraser Lewry

Tonight in Lisbon, Axl Rose played his first show with AC/DC, and Classic Rock were there to make sense of it all. Was the choice of rock's most controversial frontman a schoolboy error?

Axl Rose is sitting. It’s not the Grohl throne borrowed for Coachella, more a La-Z-Boy Recliner with an elevated platform for his injured foot and a side table for drinks. Were it not for the lightning bolt adorning the underside of his medical boot you might think he was about to binge on House Of Cards rather than spend two hours fronting the world’s greatest rock’n’roll band, and it doesn’t look right. But that’s not all. He’s on time.

Then again, AC/DC are a band who’ve never pissed about. Back in 1980, after Bon Scott was pronounced dead on arrival at a South London hospital, the Young brothers briefly considered calling it quits before hiring his replacement, and just seven weeks later Brian Johnson was in the Bahamas recording Back In Black and working on his tan. The AC/DC machine did what the AC/DC machine does: it rolled on.

You wonder what modern social media would have made of a transition that, from this distance, seems to have been made with almost indecent haste. Accusations of greed and lack of respect would certainly have flown.

The very public apoplexy that’s greeted the arrival of Brian Johnson’s stand-in does offer some clues, although the situations are clearly different. Johnson is very much with us — although his departure has been handled undoubtedly badly — and the new guy isn’t a loveable geezer in a flat cap only familiar to those who saw Geordie play Electric Lady on Top Of The Pops in 1973, but Axl Rose. Axl fucking Rose.

It’s the guy with the bandana, shrieked the Twittersphere. The guy in the kilt. The guy with the corn-rows. The guy who turns up late and throws tantrums. The guy with the whiney voice. The guy who ruined Guns N’ Roses. That guy.

Then came the video. Angus, Axl and Cliff. Reluctantly, uncomfortably facing the camera, clearly operating in damage limitation mode, inviting fans to Lisbon. It’s excruciating viewing, but it’s the moment it all becomes real. One of the biggest bands this world has ever known are about to hit the stage fronted by the singer from one of the biggest bands this world has ever known. In an industry that thrives on hyperbole it’s genuinely historic, and no-one has any idea what to expect. It might be wretched. It might be electrifying. And 50,000 fans in Portugal are the first to find out.

“It’s turned into a beautiful sunny day suddenly,” says Axl Rose, the singer in AC/DC. “Nice to meet you!”

As introductions go it’s hardly Welcome To The Jungle, but he does have a point. For most of the day the wind has howled and the rain fallen sideways, and the back half of the Passeio Marítimo de Algés venue — a grass and concrete lot on the banks of the Tagus River, just west of Lisbon — has been turned into slurry. But the sun pokes through as a well-received set from Tyler Bryant and the Shakedown warms up the crowd, and by the time AC/DC hit the stage the audience has stopped huddling together for warmth like penguins at the Pole and are very apparently Ready To Rock.

And Axl? To use the parlance of TV talent shows, he nails the songs. From the opening Rock Or Bust it’s obvious he can “do” Beano. He follows it up with a searing Shoot To Thrill, before a swaggering, confident romp through Hell Ain’t A Bad Place To Be shows he can “do” Bon too. By the end of High Voltage his good foot is pumping up and down like a jackhammer as he flips the mic from one hand to another, and as Hells Bells climaxes he’s screaming so hard your fear his throat might explode through the top of his leather-hatted head. He even ad-libs, dropping “Portuguese thighs” into You Shook Me All Night Long. It’s an astonishing, tour-de-force performance, and he looks like he’s genuinely having fun.

AC/DC are sounding just like AC/DC. As they should. Cliff and Chris and Stevie provide the engine, Angus spins and pirouettes and duckwalks and does that curious shuffle and gurns like a man with a mouth full of rancid treacle, and everything comes together as it should. The only odd thing is how chatty Axl is. He introduces Back In Black with “You ready to turn it up? Here we go now!” and ends it with an insouciant “Woohoo! That was a fun one!” Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap is “a little ditty about how to take care of business.” Let There Be Rock? “We’re gonna get a little bit biblical on you.”

Axl’s also clearly spent recent weeks pummelling Angus for trivia with fanboy enthusiasm. He tells us that AC/DC are the world’s biggest exporter of devil horns. He reveals that early in their career, the band’s American record company hired a plane to fly past one of their outdoor shows trailing a banner reading, “Play Rock ‘N’ Roll Damnation,” because it was doing well at radio but wasn’t in their set. It’s at these moments that it feels most like a tribute show, with an excited fan thrust into the spotlight, but the stories are told with such obvious delight you can’t help but be charmed. And if the evening couldn’t get any more bewildering, a chant of “Axl! Axl!” rises from the crowd, but he corrects the unruly mob with a modest, “you mean Angus.” We even get surprises, with Riff Raff the unexpected meat in the traditional Highway To Hell/For Those About To Rock encore sandwich.

So what the hell is going on? Is this a new, humble Axl, about to unexpectedly breath life into an ageing band while working angles on his own redemption? On this showing, it really feels like it could work.

And he did it from a chair.

https://www.loudersound.com/features/ac-dc-axl-rose-lisbon-first-live-review

Review in The Telegraph, May 9, 2016:
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Axl Rose hits the right note for AC/DC in Lisbon, review
4/5

By Catherine Gee

It was not something anyone expected to happen. The idea of Axl Rose joining AC/DC was the sort of stuff rock fans would laughingly dream up during 3am drunken chats about nonsense. But that is exactly what happened, in front of a stadium-sized crowd in Lisbon, Portugal, when AC/DC resumed the tour that had been thrown into uncertainty two months ago.

AC/DC have had to endure some terrible setbacks recently. Rhythm guitarist Malcolm Young’s dementia meant he was forced to retire in 2014 - and was replaced by his nephew Stevie Young. Drummer Phil Rudd departed after becoming embroiled in a variety of legal troubles that saw him placed under house arrest; he was duly replaced by Chris Slade, who drummed for the band for a time in the early Nineties. Then, most devastatingly, in March singer Brian Johnson also stepped down amid reports that he was on the verge of completely losing his hearing.

Last year, AC/DC were the biggest selling live act in the world and when Johnson departed they were still midway through their 87-date Rock or Bust tour. Yet fortune shone down from a strange place: Guns N Roses's Axl Rose offered to step into the breach and rehearsals began. Then he broke his foot.

Fortunately a broken bone is not enough to hold a rock star back these days. Rose completed a string of US dates with Guns N Roses while sat on the throne that Foo Fighters' Dave Grohl used when he broke his leg last year. Last night, it was on a stripped-down version of this throne that 54-year-old Rose, clad in black leather and dripping with diamonds, stormed through his first public outing as a touring member of AC/DC.

This is a new experience for Rose. For decades he's been doing things on his own terms - and alienating bandmembers in the process. He was notorious for skipping rehearsals and soundchecks and for turning up late to perform, sometimes leaving fans waiting for hours. But this time he's been a constant presence at rehearsals - the only day he took off, he says, was when he had surgery on his foot - and has openly admitted that some AC/DC songs are the hardest he's ever had to sing. But you wouldn’t know it from his performance. Praise the rock gods, Rose nailed those vocals.

A mere six minutes late, the quintet took to the stage against the animated backdrop of a booming animated film of two astronauts confronted by a fiery AC/DC logo, then, through the smoke of pyrotechnic explosions, swept into the 2014 album title track Rock or Bust.

Guitarist Angus Young remains that consummate showman who, at the age of 61, wears a schoolboy outfit, careers all over the stage, writhes on the floor and rocks that duck walk that’s become his signature move. During Sin City, he pulled off his tie and used it to grind out his guitar riffs, all the while mugging for the crowd.

Rose, meanwhile, was humility itself. He praised the work of AC/DC, shared the odd anecdote and made dry jokes. “Now we gonna do a song they wrote about my life story,” he deadpanned as the band kicked into the 1979 hit Shot Down In Flames - about being repeatedly turned down by beautiful women.

Vocally, there was a lack of power on the low ahh-haaas on Thunderstruck - but this was minor. For two hours he hit every note and sent it to the heavens. As the first person other than Johnson to sing lead for AC/DC since the death of original frontman Bon Scott in 1980, he did a bang-up job.

There were even extra treats for long-time fans, in the form of Rock N Roll Damnation and Riff Raff, the latter of which hasn’t been played live since the Nineties.

In an interview this week Rose said that he feels “a moron” just sitting there. In truth, performing from a throne looks less cool without a guitar. When not singing, all he could do was bounce a little and gently headbang.

For those fans who have been disgruntled about both the departure of Johnson and the appointment of Rose - and so little warmth and reassurance from Young - this show was always going to be a test. Refunds have been offered, and 7,000 have been taken up - meaning the decision to fly press over for the date was probably one designed to stem the flow. But for those who still hold a ticket for the London or Manchester dates in June, call this your reassurance. It will be great.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/music/artists/axl-rose-hits-the-right-note-for-acdc-in-lisbon-review/

TeamRock/Loudersound, May 9, 2016:
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Axl Rose: An Apology

From those about to rock, we salute you...

Dear Axl,

Apologies for getting in touch on such a public forum, but as you’re presently jet-setting around Europe we weren’t sure of the best way to get hold of you: that time we camped outside your home in LA ended badly for all concerned, and the restraining order also applies to emails, texts, phone calls and even Tinder messaging, apparently, so…

Anyway, it’s fair to say that we haven’t always seen eye-to-eye in the post-Use Your Illusion years. This isn’t the time to point fingers and apportion blame, but for the record, it was you not us. Those riots, those tantrums, the whole Chinese Democracy debacle, those times children (and indeed grown adults) walked out of your gigs in tears because you were enjoying a second portion of pie three hours after stage-time, that shit is all on you buddy. But in fairness, we’ve been no angels either. The ‘Keith Lemon’ memes, the sniggering at your corn-rows, the #TeamSlashIzzyDuffSteven hashtags… all very childish and unbecoming. And when we heard the rumours that you were set to replace Beano in AC/DC… well, let’s just say our reaction made the hysterical sweary bit from Get In The Ring sound like Katherine Jenkins singing All Things Bright and Beautiful. But that’s all in the past.

Full disclosure: on Saturday night, as we waited with bated breath to see how your virgin bow with AC/DC might turn out, we felt a little like vultures circling above carrion. We were expecting a car crash, a train wreck, an omnishambolic clusterfuck… and yet another opportunity to put the boot in with the rest of the professionally-indignant/personally-offended, puce-faced culture vigilantes. What we weren’t expecting was for you to turn up on time (well… pretty much), all smiles and sweet talk, and absolutely nail it, like a fucking boss.

We understand that the official reason given for you sitting down onstage at the Passeio Maritimo de Algés on Saturday night was because of a broken metatarsal in your left foot. Get well soon, and all that, if that’s indeed the case. Because from where we were watching, we thought you might need that chair purely because you’re toting around THE BIGGEST BALLS IN ROCK! Who else would have the nerve, the chutzpah, the sheer cojones to face down one of the most fiercely partisan audiences in rock at their most feisty and belligerent and end up charming the entire stadium’s knickers off? The cheeky mention of ‘Portuguese thighs’ in You Shook Me All Night Long? Nice. That moment where you stopped the “Axl! Axl!” chant and started up an “Angus! Angus!” roar instead? Well played brother, well played. We always knew you could pull off the vocals – no, honestly, we did - but truthfully it’s not often we’ve considered employing the words ‘humility’, ‘class’ and ‘dignity’ when considering your actions onstage, and this weekend we were genuinely impressed. And perhaps even a little embarrassed by our own readiness to shoulder pitchforks with the mob in the past few weeks.

So hey, please consider this an apology Axl. We’re sorry for doubting you. There was us thinking that this was all about ego and pay cheques, when in fact you’ve proven yourself to be rock ‘n’ roll’s own Good Samaritan, thoughtfully guiding a weary OAP across the highway from Hell (if you’ll excuse the clumsy mixed metaphors and misappropriated song title). Fair fucks to you, we didn’t see this coming at all. Good job, man, keep it up. From those about to rock, we salute you.

Your friends,

The (Rock) World and His Wife

https://www.loudersound.com/features/ac-dc-axl-rose-gunsnroses-dc-lisbon

Pictures from the show in Lisbon (credit: Getty Images)

Axl's tweets for the AC/DC shows in May:

Official band shoot:

Axl in Seville, Spain:

























With Sergio Ramos:

Concert in Seville, May 10:

Concert in Marseilles, France, May 13:

Axl with fans in Marseilles, makes a joke about Bon Jovi:

Werchter, Belgium, May 16:

Vienna, Austria, May 19:

Prague, May 22:

Hamburg, Germany, May 26

Bern, Switzerland, May 29

Leipzig, Germany, June 1: