AC/DC, the legendary hard rock group that has been performing on the Old Continent for eight years, will return for a European tour in 2024 with Brian Johnson on vocals, the Australian group announced on Monday.
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This tour runs from May 17th in Germany to August 17th in Ireland and includes a visit to France on August 13th at the Hippodrome Paris Longchamp (ticket sales for this date begin on Friday at 10am Paris time).
“Power Up” is the name, based on the name of their last studio album from 2020, which reached number one in around twenty countries when it was released.
Brian Johnson sang on this record, although he was replaced onstage by Axl Rose of Guns N' Roses in 2016 due to hearing problems behind the microphone. Brian Johnson, 76, now uses state-of-the-art hearing aids.
The other figure in the group is 68-year-old guitarist Angus Young, still wearing his retro school uniform. It is the repository of the riffs from the standards “Highway To Hell”, “Thunderstruck” and “Back In Black”.
He is also the face of AC/DC. Angus Young poses with goblin horns on the cover of “Highway To Hell” (1979), a find that continues to be exploited in the group's merchandising 45 years later.
In total, the group has sold more than 200 million records in their career.
This European tour is part of the 50th anniversary of the group, which held its first concert on December 31, 1973 at the Checkers Nightclub in Sydney, Australia.
The history of AC/DC – the name refers to alternating current, but in slang it also means “sail and steam” – is turbulent. The first singer, Bon Scott, died in 1980 and Malcolm Young – guitarist and co-founder of the group in 1973 with his brother Angus (Scots living in Australia) – died in 2017.