AC/DC - Powerage

Details:

• 1978 release
• Label : Atlantic ATL50 483
• Review format : vinyl

A quiet sunday morning in South Wales and I’ve been listening to a bit of AC/DC, influenced by BBC4’s decision to show their fine 1978 Rock Goes To College performance on Friday evening. Rather than reach for the usual suspects of Highway To Hell, Back In Black or personal favourite Let There Be Rock I thought I’d spin the often overlooked Powerage album (possibly because I don’t have the others on vinyl yet only CD!). At this time of course Bon Scott was still on vocals and the twin guitar of Angus and Malcolm Young was backed on this album for the first time by English bass player Cliff Williams with Phil Rudd on the drums.

Side one kicks off with the excellent, high energy Rock N Roll Damnation and then moves into the underrated boogie rocker Gimme A Bullet. The lyrical highlight of the album follows with Bon Scott’s story of excessive spending, Down Payment Blues. Drug themed Gone Shootin’ isn’t the best ever AC/DC track but pounds along into the superb Riff Raff - a song that was to become a live favourite and indeed opener to their next album, the live, If You Want Blood You’ve Got It.

The only bona-fide DC classic on Powerage, Sin City opens side two - still part of the live set on the Stiff Upper Lip tour twenty odd years later and covered by the likes of Bruce Dickinson, Great White and Twisted Sister in recent years, its a stomping rocker telling of gambling and debauchery in Las Vegas. Up To My Neck In You follows and is another decent track but for me the bar is then raised by the much underated What’s Next To The Moon. The wikipedia entry for Powerage claims that the surviving members of AC/DC are dissatisfied with this song - I’m not! For me its the highlight of the album!! The quality control meter drops with the final two songs Cold Hearted Man and Kicked In The Teeth which is unsurprising given the sheer amount of output from AC/DC around this time. I would imagine that once they had enough songs written an album was published looking at the closeness of the release dates in the mid to late 70s. Of course sub-standard DC tracks from this period would grace albums of lesser mortals!

During the course of listening to this album for review I also dug out the recent reissue CD of it from the Rocks box set and was surprised at a very different running order as well as the missing Cold Hearted Man - I’d not noticed this difference before. I’m more used to the vinyl order than the CD order but further investigation indicates that the cd recreates the running order of an international (U.S.) release of the album as opposed to the european issue.

The 2003 reissue cd enables the disc owner to access internet content at www.acdcrocks.com and view period photos, a video of Rock N Roll Damnation live, access to bonus tracks including the missing Cold Hearted Man and ‘european mixes’ of 3 tracks and view the tour dates supporting this album - a tour which included a scheduled appearance at Great Yarmouth’s Vauxhall Holiday Camp on 11 May 78! Can’t imagine them playing there these days can you?

Summary: A very good album but falling short of a classic due to 2 or 3 fillers. The fact that only one track ranks as an ACDC classic indicates that this falls short of the very high standard this fine band have. Still an enjoyable album though and well worth a regular listen at high volume. As with all AC/DC albums its worth seeking out the recent reissues for the access to the excellent internet content.

If you listen to one track listen to: What’s Next To The Moon

Score : 3.5/5