(Credits: Far Out / Joan Sorolla)
Wed 26 November 2025 19:38, UK
Every rock band does the most damage on the live stage. Despite having the studio as their de facto playground every time they are off the road, any artist in their natural habitat will set up shop in front of an audience and prove why they should be called one of the greatest bands in the world. It’s about spectacle in rock and roll, and no one knew that mentality better than Angus Young.
When first emerging on the scene with AC/DC, Young was a child of the stone age of rock and roll, first getting turned on by the records from Chuck Berry and Elvis Presley. Once he started to work off his brother Malcolm in their own outfit, Young had found his calling in a young schoolboy’s uniform, raising hell everywhere he went.
As he once put it, “When I’m on stage, the savage in me is released. It’s like going back to being a cave man. It takes me six hours to come down after a show.” You can sense that very notion on stage as he hops about like a loon.
In fact, he even joked about that, quipping, “Once you’re on stage, you can’t go back, even when things go wrong, people expect you to stay there and entertain them. When all else fails, you’ve got to try tap dancing.”
Though Young co-opted Berry’s signature duck walk for his own when playing, he would often take it to another level, letting his guitar take him to another place and practically having an exorcism whenever he tore off a solo. In their 1970s prime, Bon Scott could compete with the likes of Young, too, playing up his persona as a booze-swinging madman.
Robert Plant on stage with Led Zeppelin. (Credits: Far Out / Led Zeppelin)
Though Young respected his contemporaries on the scene, he was never that impressed when another rock institution came to town, even having issues with the Rolling Stones when they eventually supported them. But as AC/DC was rising on the scene, a different rock revolution was going on in England from the likes of the lavish Led Zeppelin.
Operating as a sequel band to The Yardbirds, Jimmy Page assembled a group designed to break down the boundaries of what rock could be, turning their albums into drawn-out exercises of discovery. Though the album may have worked in its format, Young was not impressed when Zeppelin tried translating their style to the live show.
When speaking with Classic Rock, Young didn’t mince words about his disdain for Zeppelin’s stage persona, recalling, “I’ve seen that band live. They were on for three hours. For two-and-a-half hours, they bored the audience. Then at the end, they pull out old rock’n’roll numbers to get the crowd movin’. That’s sick. They’re supposed to be the most excitin’ rock’n’roll band in the world.”
Although Young may have had a love for other British acolytes like The Rolling Stones, all that Zeppelin represented was a pale imitation of what had come before, explaining, “Led Zeppelin and all that have just been poor imitators of The Who and bands like that. That’s when I reckon it stopped. The rest I wouldn’t even call progressive.”
Despite his dismal review, Zeppelin would continue to pioneer how the live show would operate by rock standards, drawing plaudits from peers like Vanilla Fudge and Jack White, with Page bringing the theremin out in the middle of ‘Dazed and Confused’ and playing his signature two-necked guitar in the concert film The Song Remains the Same. Even if Young wasn’t thrilled, he took at least a few cues from Page’s searing style.
Going through specific AC/DC cuts, it’s easy to see where Young got his signature licks, with ‘Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap’ featuring a guitar line that feels ripped straight out of the solo from ‘Heartbreaker’. While Young may have been fascinated with Page’s playing, he preferred to admire from a distance whenever they had a show. Three-hour sets just weren’t for him. He still prefers his rock ‘n’ roll at its purest.
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