I have always been an AC/DC fan. That is the position. No qualifications, no “but I prefer the Brian Johnson era,” no carefully neutral metal-press framing. AC/DC are one of the greatest rock bands ever to walk into a room. The Oakland Coliseum 1979 footage is the proof.
What is on screen
Highway to Hell dropped in July 1979. The tour that followed was the first time AC/DC properly broke the United States. The Oakland show comes from somewhere in the back half of that year. Bon Scott on vocals. Angus Young in the schoolboy uniform. Malcolm Young on rhythm. Cliff Williams on bass. Phil Rudd on drums. Five men playing the simplest possible thing as if their lives depended on it.
Why Bon
Bon Scott was born in Forfar, Scotland, in 1946. His family moved to Australia when he was six. He died in London, February 1980, less than a year after this Oakland show. The Bon Scott era of the band ends here.
Back in Black would arrive a few months after his death with Brian Johnson, and that record is rightly considered one of the greatest hard rock albums ever made. But the Bon Scott records, Let There Be Rock through Powerage and Highway to Hell, have a swagger Brian could not replicate. Bon was a frontman in the way Iggy Pop and Mick Jagger were frontmen. Singing was almost beside the point. It was the leering grin, the leather, and the conviction that the rules were for other people.
What AC/DC understood
The whole genius was knowing what not to do. No keyboards. No prog detours. No interludes. Three chords, a backbeat, and an honest vocal. They wrote the same song forty different ways for five decades and the audience still showed up.
Watch Angus during Highway to Hell in this Oakland clip. He runs around like a man being electrocuted by his own guitar. That is rock and roll. Not the studio polish, not the ballad, not the duet with a country singer. The kid in the schoolboy uniform refusing to stop moving while his brother’s right hand pumps out the riff for the eight-thousandth time.
Why this video matters
The list of bands who have tried to write the perfect three-chord rock song is long. The list of bands who managed it is short. AC/DC sit at the top of that list. With Bon Scott they were unstoppable. The Oakland 1979 show is what a rock band looks like when it has not yet been told to behave.
Watch the video. Then put on Highway to Hell and turn it up.
