Legendary Aussie hard rockers deliver a set of fan faves in Vancouver
Not because the legendary Aussie rockers aren’t worthy of the honour, more because the band has weathered the kind of challenges that would put many others down for the count
First the group lost a dynamic frontman of the sort that doesn’t come along but once in a lifetime. Then they replaced Bon Scott with gravel-throated belter Brian Johnson who proved more than up for the fill-in, giving the band the kind of push it needed to break into the superstar realm with its first non-Bon recording, 1980’s seminal Back in Black.
From that point on, the group’s global impact continued to expand with only an occasional shift to the drummer’s stool
But the double whammy of founding rhythm guitarist and key riffmeister Malcolm Young passing in 2017, the year after Johnson had to bow out of the 2016 Rock or Bust tour due to severe hearing loss, made it look like the end of the line. Johnson is on record stating the diagnosis was ‘the darkest day of my professional life.’
Last night there were signs that the singer is clearly facing challenges to be heard above the noisy pulse pounded out behind him these days. And the attempts to boost him up in the mix meant many of the louder songs in the set at times appeared to be redlining the sound system to compensate. B.C. Place has hosted a lot of shows in recent years that all sounded just fine. Even equally loud acts like Metallica and Guns N Roses have mostly conquered the room.
