Apparently AC/DC's legendary livewire of lead singer Bon Scott used to
joke: "when I'm a f**king bigshot, I'm calling my solo album Bonfire." That
quip is especially poignant for the fact that Bon died tragically (of extreme
inebriation) in 1980, just as his band was breaking into the big time.
Of course after Bon's death, AC/DC, with their new front man Brian
Johnson went on to sell millions of records and even more concert seats.
And while Bon will never release that solo album, now, some 17 years after
his death, his erstwhile mates have decided to do the next best thing in
his memory, issuing a lavish 5-CD box set of AC/DC music called BONFIRE,
that we are assured is filled with "goodies Bon would've wanted you to have."
If you don't already know, AC/DC's pre-BACK IN BLACK period saw them
making some of nastiest, most earth-shakingly powerful rock n' roll ever.
And to hear Bon Scott declare in song, "It's my belief that my big balls
should be held every night" is to witness rock music's funniest, most
proudly facetious moment bar none. SPINAL TAP came close... years later.
So you probably think with 5 CDs of that stuff, you're going to
be in for a treat. But right up to the third disc of the set, all you've
heard is the band cranking out their most well-known tunes live, and
perhaps even more frustrating, you end up hearing songs like "Live Wire,"
"Hell Ain't a Bad Place To Be" and "The Jack" twice, in different venues
but sounding almost indistinguishable from one another and often,
uninspiringly similar to the studio recordings themselves.
It's obvious that no attempt was made to contact Bon to actually ask
him what he wanted to include in BONFIRE (or if he wanted the entire album
of the Brian Johnson-fronted BACK IN BLACK album pegged to his tribute),
and that the only opinions surveyed were those of die-hard fans and AC/DC
completists. The greatest pity is that while BONFIRE could have been more
evenly composed of live recordings, unreleased outtakes as well as the
studio cuts of Bon's best moments with the band, it ends up bludgeoning
the listener with relentless, and sometimes subpar live recordings of classic
songs, and then totally forgets about some of Bon's most memorable
performances (where the hell is "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap".)
BONFIRE as it has been released is ultimately exhausting but not
exhaustive, and will sadly be of interest only to the most fastidious of
AC/DC fanatics.
RATING: 4/10
DISC ONE: LIVE FROM THE ATLANTIC STUDIOS
Recorded live in December 1977 and released shortly after as a
promo-only item, this set of eight songs includes the more well-known
of AC/DC's earliest tunes, like "Live Wire," "Dog Eat Dog" and "Whole
Lotta Rosie." While faultless rendered, the performance can at the most
be described as workmanlike. Best to refer to the versions on the
original albums.
DISC TWO: LET THERE BE ROCK (THE MOVIE) (LIVE IN PARIS)
Disc Two, the "soundtrack" to the road movie that was recorded live on
stage in Paris in December 1979 is actually composed of two discs itself.
The performance as a whole by the band is uneven, so that while "Live Wire"
is rousing and "Sin City" is absolutely thunderous, the 13-minute long version
of "Bad Boy Boogie" is the song on which you'll be heading to the loo, fixing
yourself a drink, or just switching to the next disc. More than enough songs
on which to stomp along to though, and a few are imbued with so much innate
heaviness they make Metallica's live recordings sound like grunge-lite.
DISC THREE: VOLTS
The most interesting of the five discs. VOLTS consists of oddities
like "She's Got Balls" (Malcolm Young's tribute to his wife of the time,
and one of the reasons why she divorced him), "Touch Too Much" with
different lyrics from the version on HIGHWAY TO HELL, the uncharacteristic
(but excellent) blues "Ride On," the Scottish bagpipe chorus on "It's A
Long Way To The Top If You Wanna Rock 'N' Roll" and a thoroughly enjoyable
take on Chuck Berry's "School Days" from T.N.T. Stick around for the few
short snippets of Bon's ramblings at the end of this disc.
DISC FOUR: BACK IN BLACK
The post-Bon Scott album BACK IN BLACK justifies its presence in this
set without a single addition or omission by reason of it being "Bon-inspired."
But then so was AC/DC's entire post-Bon career. Moreover, it's almost certain
that anybody who's going to buy BONFIRE is already going to own this most
ubiquitous of heavy metal albums (certainly AC/DC's best known album), and
probably own it in two or three of the available formats. So why make him or
her pay for it again? If the reasons are not commercial, they can only be
academic: to compel the listener to compare Bon Scott to Brian Johnson, or
compare Brian Johnson when his voice was in fine form to Brian Johnson now
when he more often than not sounds like Hell's own version of Alvin the
Chipmunk. Nevertheless, a classic in its own right.
Gerald Tan 1997
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