Love Letters to Records: AC/DC Live

By Jack Rafferty

Preface

This series will be ongoing and will touch upon records that have changed my life in some significant way, and more importantly they will be records that I have a deep, intense love affair with. The following is the first, and therefore it is fitting that it be about my first record. That being said, those that come after will not necessarily adhere to any sort of particular order, especially chronological. Love and music are nebulous. They are beyond order, which I state happily in contradiction of the end of the year lists that I make. I hope that these letters will bridge the distance that can exist in the sterility of list-making. It’s time to get intimate. 

Love Letter: AC/DC Live

When I first stepped into the record store, the only feeling I could remember rivaling such a sensation was produced by libraries. I had heard music, undoubtedly, but narrowly so. I had yet to grasp even a fragment of the understanding of the role it would play in my life going forward. Yet once I had walked through those doors, with the money given to me by my father (the meansto begin this journey), the pieces that would form such understanding were revealed to me. 

I gawked at the shelves lined with sleek plastic cases. Like the stunning atmosphere of a library, I was presented with the overwhelming sensation of possibility. Indeed, the alluring restriction of only having enough money to purchase one of so many potential experiences immersed my young mind in a physicality of choice. I felt as though I had literally journeyed to the threshold of a crossroad. The choice that I was to make next could define the way in which certain aspects of myself would develop. In fact, it was almost assured that my selection would have reverberating influences that would permeate deeply and inwardly, in addition to opening up doors that would lead to multiplied doors leading to further multiplied doors ad infinitum. This moment carried weight. 

I browsed the intimidating shelves, looming above my limited stature, the varied sheens of artwork from numerous genres enticing me as I went. My father had given me fifteen minutes to find something before he would come pick me up, and how insufficient that amount was shined in greater clarity to me as each moment passed. There was a powerful feeling of inadequacy in the ignorance of my appraisals. As people walked by, I thought them to be towering giants, who were so much more knowledgeable than me. I felt small, but my desire and curiosity gave breath to my courage. I realized quickly that I did not have nearly enough time required to look at everything I wanted to. To hold each case, look at the exciting images, read the words. I decided that I must rely and act upon a more generalized notion, a gut feeling, at least for now. 

It is for this reason that, when I came to the edge of the third shelf, I froze once I glanced at the bottom corner under a black tab with white lettering entitled “Rock.” There, in light emphasized like some Baroque chiaroscuro, was the cover of AC/DC  Live. In the foreground I witnessed Angus, not jumping, but in the process of descending from a jump, sleek with sweat, taut with energy, filled with movement. Clothed only in black shorts and shoes, his face full of aggression and ecstasy. I had never seen anything like it. 

I grasped it, held it, felt its weight in my hand. This was it. I carried it as carefully as a pallbearer would escort a coffin to the register. The person working at the register had blue hair, tattoos, piercings all over the face, and dark clothing. I felt intimidated only because I looked upon the person with a certain sense of reverence. This was like the librarian of the record store. This was the sentinel, the guardian and keeper, of this panoply of sacred noise. I shyly handed over the record when it was my turn in line, the person looked down from the counter at me, then at the record, then back to me, and then smiled, asking warmly, “You like these guys?” 

I stumbled upon my thoughts before responding.

“I’ve…this is my…never heard them yet…my first one.” 

The smile grew larger, and the clerk responded, “you have good taste.”

I might as well have been knighted. I beamed outwardly and without shame. After the money was exchanged and change was counted out, I received the record. I nearly hugged it on the spot, but I checked myself. I needed to appear collected, in control of this important moment. I thanked the worker and walked toward the exit, but not before glancing back once more. 

I strain to think of a time when I ran faster and with more abandon then when I returned home that afternoon. I fumbled my way up the stairs and found my CD player. I retrieved the disc with strenuous care, then I put the headphones on and pressed play. At first, I was confused, not knowing AC/DC Live meant a live album and not knowing what a live album was. A crowd emerged from an ether of silence, materializing from blackness through the slow swell of their collective clapping, chanting, and cheers. An ominous sound of thunder commenced. Then another. I felt as though I stood upon a mountain precipice, becoming enshrouded in a dark cloud of storm. The drum cymbals begin a rhythm that is joined by the clapping. Then the subtle hiss of a guitar through an amp. A deafening and triumphant cheer. The opening riff to “Thunderstruck”begins. 

Chills emanated from my body in places I wasn’t actively conscious of. The newness and severity of this experience was unmatched. As if I had grown up blind and this was the first time that light had entered my vision. It felt as though I had returned to a home that I didn’t realize I had after a long and wearisome journey. The growling chorus of vocals joins, sinister and thrilling. Then the bass drum accompanies the two-stroke THUN-DER. I thought I would faint. Brian Johnson starts screaming like a rabid dog that had just swallowed gasoline. Malcolm’s rhythm guitar produced the sensation of a roller coaster careening my body through sinuous rails. Cliff’s bass seemed to replace my blood and coarse through my veins, with Slades’s drumming pounding my chest like granite. 

Before I could recover from the conclusion of “Thunderstruck,” “Shoot to Thrill”sounds off. I felt actually scared by this album. Scared in a way that inspires further curiosity, like the fear produced by mysteries that we can’t understand. Fear that makes us crawl further down the dark tunnel, unable to resist the possibility of discovering what lies within. And the lyrics! 

“Shoot to thrill, play to kill
Too many women with too many pills
Shoot to thrill, play to kill
I got my gun at the ready, gonna fire at will”

I felt like I was breaking rules holy and sacred listening to such things, and that I would be imprisoned for it. All this just made me love it more. How forbidden and dangerous this new power was. It felt volatile as a bomb in my hands would have. By the time “Back in Black”had started, I was up, holding my player in one hand, eyes closed, boogying wildly in a small three by four foot space in my room. I didn’t even need to know what “headbanging” was before I did it. The movement and the sounds that caused it were as natural, as essential, as speech or hunger. 

Everything seemed to be whirling. I was placed into a reality completely separate and distinct from what I was accustomed to. Songs like “Dirty Deeds,” “Hells Bells,” “High Voltage,” “Whole Lotta Rosie,” “You Shook Me All Night Long,” “T.N.T.,” and “Highway to Hell,”each and every one was actively and directly altering my life and how I viewed it. This was a renewal. A revival. A complete reimagining of everything. It was as though I had lived ten years in those two hours. The religion my father tried so hypocritically to shove down my throat didn’t have fucking shit on this. This was the closest I had ever been, or ever wanted to be, to a spiritual experience. If listening to this music meant that I was going to Hell, it wouldn’t take five minutes for me to make a decision. This was going to be my life. And I knew that I would so passionately and obsessively immerse myself in it, that if damnation was the cost, I would meet it with a big fuckin grin. This was the beginning.

“Hey mama, look at me

I’m on my way to the Promised Land”