AC/DC

If You Want Blood… You’ve Got It (Live)

EMI 4 94669 2 0

I’ll leave Sabbath and Zeppelin out of this as for me they’re
simply on a higher plain, but if you ask me what the greatest live rock
album of all time is, there are only two contenders, and one of those
isn’t Frampton Comes Alive. First in the Red Corner, from the land
where people stand upside-down and drink possibly the worst beer on the
planet it’s AC/DC, and in the Blue Corner from the land of the Limey,
the ugliest band in the world, Motorhead. Now Jonny
will probably opt for the latter’s “No Sleep Till Hammersmith” LP and
on some days I would agree with him as this is a mighty fine slab of
vinyl you should definitely own but as it’s the summer and “No
Sleep….” is for me a winter LP I’ll plump for the former.

Now
Motorhead were at the time the loudest and fastest but AC/DC were by
far the dirtiest. Only an Australian (I know he’s technically a
Scotsman) could come out with lyrics like AC/DC’s and get away with it.
I mean can you imagine Jon By Jovi crooning lyrics like

But I Made Her Cry, And I Made her Scream, And I Curdled Her Cream

Like in “The Jack” or could you imagine Nickeltwat
singing about having the best sex they’d ever had with a nineteen stone
woman called Rosie? I think not.

No, this isn’t metal with super flashy guitar solos or fancy drum
fills, but what it is from the word go, simple, honest blues driven
rock music. The riff to “Riff-Raff” is just fantastic and never fails
to get the adrenaline flowing through my veins. I love nothing more
than burning down the motorway and putting this on. The only problem is
I’m having such a good time that I end up going far too fast and
slamming my brakes on when I see the police patrol. It’s not all
fast-paced though, AC/DC love to do their blues thing with the
aforementioned “The Jack” which is surely the finest song about
catching Gonorrhoea ever written.

I suppose I would describe this as un-contrived working mans rock
music. Yes all the favourites are there, Bon’s sing along during “The
Jack”, “Whole Lotta Rosie” is there along with “High Voltage”, Angus’s
trademark solo during “Let There Be Rock”. It’s not surprising in any
way, shape or form, it’s probably more predictable than an episode of Just Shoot Me but unlike David Splayed this is a great, great piece of pure entertainment.

Ruthless Ratings

• Ruthless Rating – 8 “42-39-56” Points Out Of 10
• Buy Or Burn – Burning in Hell ain’t a bad place to be. After you’ve bought this, of course.