With the news AC/DC are not retiring and will continue to make music it's worth remembering some of the most memorable moments of one of rock's greatest bands.
BACK TO SCHOOL
In 1975 AC/DC made their infamous appearance on Australian music TV show, Countdown. The young band may have been playing from their debut album High Voltage, but their rendition of Baby Please Don't Go was remembered mostly because Bon Scott dressed up as a schoolgirl. Complete with blonde pigtails and make-up, Scott interacted cleverly with Angus Young, who wore his trademark schoolboy outfit.
JAILBREAK
Perhaps one of the few people in history to pull off the double denim ensemble, Scott is at his tantalising best in an open prison shirt and outrageously tight jeans. Angus wears something resembling prison pyjamas as the band play in a quarry, while Bon enacts his own death after being shot by Angus and Malcolm. It was one of the first Australian music videos to use pyrotechnic explosions and fake blood.
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SWANSTON STREET SWANSONG
Another Countdown-produced video became a part of Australian music history in 1976, when AC/DC took to Melbourne's Swanston Street on the back of a flat-bed truck to play It's a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock 'n' Roll). As trams pass by, members of the Rats of Tobruk Pipe Band get to work before Glaswegian frontman Scott has a go on the bagpipes too. Headbanging is plentiful in this clip that was included in the band's Family Jewels DVD.
GOING WIRELESS
On the 1977 Let There Be Rock tour Angus pioneered the brand new technology of the wireless guitar transmitter, allowing him to play solos while perched on Bon Scott's shoulders in the middle of the audience.
Having previously relied on stage crew to guide his guitar cable behind him during his audience walkabout routine, the bulky Schaffer-Vega Diversity System (SVDS) was a revelation.
The transmitter was duct taped to Angus' Gibson SG, allowing him to engage in all his usual wild stage antics with complete freedom of movement. Angus and Malcolm used the system for at least a decade, before switching to Lectrosonics wireless guitar systems.
THE TRANSITION
To this day it's seen as one of rock's most successful and seamless frontman transitions of all time. Bon Scott died aged 33 on February 19, 1980, and Englishman Brian Johnson was named as his replacement on April 8. Back In Black sold more than 50 million copies and became one of the best selling albums of all time.
Johnson recalled his first concert in Belgium in June 1980. "I walked on and I just saw all these banners that said, `Rest in peace Bon'," he said. "And I went, `Oh boy, what have I let myself in for?'."
One lone banner said, "Good luck Brian".
"That's all I needed," he said.
Johnson said he was so nervous he accidentally sang the lyrics to Bad Boy Boogie in two different songs. "It was a traumatic night ... (but) the kids started cheering and I suddenly felt at home."
ANGUS! ANGUS!
The final track on the Let There Be Rock album, Whole Lotta Rosie (1977) is one of the band's heaviest in the Bon Scott era and recounts one of Scott's vastly chronicled womanising exploits.
Its subject, a portly Tasmanian woman called Rosie, became memorable in her own right with the lyrics, "She ain't exactly pretty, Ain't exactly small, 42-39-56, You could say she's got it all."
But the song is largely remembered for its instantly recognisable opening guitar riff which would automatically incite the audience to chant "Angus! Angus!"
LIVE AT THE RIVER PLATE DVD
In December 2009, during their monster 20-month Black Ice Tour, AC/DC returned to Argentina for the first time in 13 years. Over three nights in a Buenos Aires football stadium they played to 200,000 frenzied fans.
The resulting concert movie AC/DC: Live at the River Plate documents those epic shows. Angus rises from the depths to perform Highway to Hell with Brian Johnson. Angus is all over every inch of the stage in the show that features pyrotechnics, big-screen animation, and a giant inflatable Rosie (Whole Lotta Rosie).
Deafening cannon shots sound For Those About To Rock (We Salute You), and in Hells Bells, Johnson swings from a gigantic bell. Many fans pin the concert as the best live DVD in the music world.
JAMMING WITH THE STONES
On February 18, 2003, Angus and Malcolm Young jammed with the Rolling Stones on stage in Sydney. In an intimate show for 2000 fans at the Enmore Theatre they played a rendition of the B.B. King blues classic Rock Me Baby. Angus took over the stage to do his trademark Chuck Berry-esque duckwalk, much to the amusement of the Stones.
