Long time AC/DC drummer Phil Rudd is back behind the drumkit banging out rock anthems as headline act for Full Metal Orchestra, along with other top names at Spark Arena in July.
It’s rock n roll accompanied by unconventional but no less mighty backing musicians, the 29-piece Auckland Philharmonic Orchestra.
Rudd hitting the skins live again is a long awaited comeback for the drummer’s fans – who nickname him the ‘human metronome’, because of his trademark hi-hat swing and grooves on AC/DC songs.
Despite periods of absence, and stand-ins over the years, Rudd has never been formally dropped by AC/DC. Somehow, the fans’ favourite drummer always manages to come “back in black”.
Although Rudd recorded AC/DC’S 2020 album Power Up, he’s not accompanying them on the European and North American Power Up tour.
“Phil Rudd was always in my mind as the dream ‘get’ as one of the world’s best known rock stars, living right here in New Zealand,” says organiser David Higgins, of Synthony, the Kiwi music phenomenon with sell out mash-ups of dance/orchestra music.
It’s going to be massive, fuelled, we’ll take off the roof…you wait. It’s going to be thumping, boom boom, bang. It’s exciting, like nothing else I’ve ever done, putting the best raw banging rock songs with a classical orchestra,” Rudd tells Stuff, from his home in Tauranga.
