Heavy-metal legend AC/DC shook Alltel Arena in North Little Rock not all night long Wednesday, but for an ear-blasting couple of hours that included cannon fire, a wrecked train, flames, a busty inflatable doll, a giant bell and a whole lot of noise pollution.
They may be long of tooth, thin of hair, wrinkled and jowly, but the band's five members aren't short on energy, enthusiasm and the ability to bring 11,986 people to their feet for two hours.
The band played only four songs from its current CD, Black Ice, focusing mostly on favorites from its 35-year catalog. They opened with a dramatic rendition of "Rock and Roll Train," pounding out the new hit as a cartoon steam engine roared onto a video screen above the stage. When the song ended, the cartoon and screen had given way to a model of a wrecked engine canted atop a wall of Marshall amplifiers.
Despite beginning 15 minutes late, the performance was anything but a train wreck, with every song and prop change executed flawlessly. The AC/DC-emblazoned engine shot flames and smoke from its stack at appropriately timed intervals, a giant bell descended to the stage during "Hells Bells," and animated video of a bomber plane dropping guitars flashed on screens during "War Machine."
The crowd demonstrated its approval by fervently shouting out, with little prompting, anthemic lines from favorites such as "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap," "TNT," "Highway to Hell," "Thunderstuck," "Whole Lotta Rosie" and "The Jack."
The most fun, though, came from watching the antics of guitarist Angus Young and singer Brian Johnson. Johnson slapped fans' hands, shimmied and strutted while screeching mostly unintelligible lyrics and showing no indication that this was just another show. But Young, whose performance face resembles a demonic gasping fish, stole the show.
Ah, Angus, you gotta love him. We doubt there's any other 53-year-old, banty rooster of a man who could pull off a self-mocking striptease out of a schoolboy outfit to reveal black boxer shorts with AC/DC stamped in flaming red across the rear. And that was before his frenzied 10-minute solo on his famous Gibson SG - played straight, no whammy bar or wah pedal- during which he duckwalked and stomped across the stage, up and down a runway and atop the amplifiers, periodically flopping onto his back and spinning.
Other highlights included Johnson swinging from a rope descended from the giant bell and the later appearance of the almost ceiling-high inflatable doll in red garters, hose and bra straddling the steam engine and tapping her high-heeled foot during "Whole Lotta Rosie" - a song, Johnson explained, about a "dirty girl."
A person could ask if a band whose members are in their 50s might be too old for songs about dirty girls and debauchery. And one could answer: Not yet.