Wednesday, March 03, 2010

Back in Black - RIP Bon

ACDC played in town at Adelaide Oval, a lovely cricket ground surrounded by pavilions, surrounded by expanses of public parklands and a river, overlooked by our most prominent cathedral. A cultural event. 42000 in the grounds, probably about 6000 or more scattered in mini-crowds in different convenient locations in the surrounding parklands or river bank. The cathedral was ringing its bells as the sun sank.

What can I say about the gig itself, except that it was worth the trip, loud enough to hear clear and alter the perceptions later (people were lining the street half a kilometre away as we caught the taxi home), and well and truly worth the effort?

Not much, except that Acka Dacka was better i thought than when i saw them in the early nineties, as good as Brian Johnson is the crowd still misses Bon (thirty years since he left us), and that through the crowds outside were various smatterings of the various band scenes I've touched over the years. Was it totally coincidence that we settled down on an edge of the parklands bordering King William Street as it winds up Cathedral Hill, were grooving to 'Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap' in the festival atmosphere of black tee shirts and hard rock with the city going on about its business of a Tuesday night not more than five metres behind our backs, when we realised that the gathering on the hill a few metres beneath us was a smattering of the musical core of The Gaslight Tavern Crowd, whom half we knew and in front of whom we'd played some of our best shows? Or that I'd seen the guys in the various throw together bands they continually make up play most of the music that the Rock Gods were playing on the other side of the fence in the stadium? Or that I was wearing my Gaslight Teeshirt under the leather jacket? Who knows?

Good way to spend a Tuesday evening with 50000 of my fellow citizens. Indeed.