LIVE: AC/DC - Download Festival 2010, Donington - 11th June 2010
Tuesday, 15 June 2010
Written by Jon Stickler
It was a weekend where most of the UK were donning red and white for the opener of England’s world cup campaign, however it was back in black for a massive crowd who had collected in a field in the Midlands. AC/DC were back in town!
Thirty years on and should they know better? Thousands of rockers anticipating the show of a lifetime will disagree! A packed out Friday night sun-drenched Download arena was awash with t-shirts from AC/DC tours through the ages, each and every one of them ready to worship at the alter of heavy metal. The main stage at Donington.
Shipping their own stage to the event, Aussie rockers AC/DC don’t do things by half. The supersized stag is immense. Bearing two Angus caps on top of each of the stage flanked speaker-stacks, three huge video screens as well as a 50ft walk-out into the crowd, the wall of Marshall amplification was ready and primed to blow Donington away.
Exploding onto the stage through a blast of fireworks and smoke, the familiar screams of Geordie frontman Brian Johnson thunder through the arena. “We’re here for one reason and that’s to rock and roll – and the party starts right now!”
Starting with a belting rendition of ‘Black Ice’ album opener Rock N Roll Train the rock legends, with a combined age of 290, power through for two hours of the nineteen highest voltage rock n roll tracks EVER! Anthem after anthem, hit after hit, we get the entire AC/DC assault, You Shook Me, Highway To Hell, Hells Bells, Shoot To Thrill, Whole Lotta Rosie, TNT, Back In Black, High Voltage, Big Jack and more.
Playing in front of an enormous gothic-looking, fire-breathing, smoke-blowing rock n roll steam engine, AC/DC gave one hell of a show. Pint-sized guitar legend Angus Young (is he getting smaller or are the SG’s getting bigger??) duck-walking from either side of the stage as well as rocking out into the crowd along the walk-out pier.
The superstars, who have headlined the rock festival three times didnt disappoint in giving fans the full AC/DC treatment. You just cannot stop rocking!! It was all there, the Hells Bell, the giant inflatable Rosie (sitting astride the steam engine!) and the ever-present 21-gun salute finale.
I was lucky enough to the see the band when they brought their Black Ice tour to Birmingham in April last year, however, with the addition of 90,000 thousand fans, a truly electric atmosphere, the same classic tracks just appear to be as fresh as the day they were written.
With Angus now into another decade – amazingly his fifth decade - of rocking out on stage as a schoolboy, long may it continue! The best band in the world today if you ask me and a sensational Download show. For those who went to rock, we salute you!
AC/DC played the following tracks:
1. Rock N Roll Train
2. Hell Aint A Bad Place To Be
3. Back In Black
4. Big Jack
5. Dirty Deeds (Done Dirt Cheap)
6. Shot Down In Flames
7. Thunderstruck
8. Black Ice
9. The Jack
10. Hells Bells
11. Shoot To Thrill
12. War Machine
13. High Voltage
14. You Shook Me All Night Long
15. TNT
16. Whole Lotta Rosie
17. Let There Be Rock
Encore
18. Highway To Hell
19. For Those About To Rock (We Salute You)
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