Yes, I Want Blood

Its damn right that the first thing you hear is the crowd, 3500 Glaswegians bang up for a Sunday night’s entertainment. Ten seconds in you can hear the hum of the amps being powered up for a very hard night’s work. At thirty eight seconds you can hear Angus Young walk on stage, courtesy of the crowd’s reaction. Three seconds later it all detonates.

The greatest hard rock band ever, touring in support of their best LP, ’nuff said.

If You Want Blood, You’ve Got It* lit me up when I first heard it on a 7th generation tape copy in 1986, as it did when I bought it in January 1988, as it does still; it fries my brain to think that I first encountered it only 8 years after it was recorded and that was 38 years ago …

I remember a nice lady who worked with my mum in a wholefood shop, Aardvark in Carmarthen, telling me the cover of my new LP was ‘gruesome’ as I was waiting for my mum to finish, I had just thought it was funny. I probably muttered something a bit apologetic at the time but inside the teen rebellion was burned with the flame of a billion suns!

---

Recorded on 30 April 1978 at the legendary Glasgow Apollo, this was the LP that AC/DC put out instead of a best of; sound move, pun intended. Glasgow was near enough a hometown gig for the Young brothers, Bon’s roots in Forfar being close enough to trade on for the band too. The fact that the whole band played their encore dressed in full Scotland football kit** did not hurt their reception either.

Not that the LP sleeve tells you any of these niceties, it is, gruesome pic aside, bare bones, no fuss.

---

‘Riff Raff’ is an okay track in its studio incarnation, but as the opener here it is unstoppable. The band power through it, sounding utterly adrenalized, firing off licks and flicks for fun as the boogie hurtles on, everything built on Phil Rudd’s brontosaurus beat. When Angus solos, I reach for my air guitar, I have to.

A quick ‘thank you, so nice to be back’ and ‘Hell Ain’t A Bad Place To Be’ struts its stuff, powered by Cliff Williams flowing bass line. It is utterly sublime, especially when Angus reels off a perfectly judged solo, slow by his standards. Running it bang up against the thuggish machismo of ‘Bad Boy Boogie’ is perfect sequencing, especially in this harder meaner version.

If You Want Blood was my first taste of the clap, so to speak, via the lewder lyrics of ‘The Jack’, or the urinary ward blues. Leaving all that nastiness aside, again Angus just floats an incredible solo out across the song as only he can, before Bon rouses the rabble.

The band use ‘Problem Child’ to bring down the hammer on the first side, of course its a perfect choice. ‘Some run, some fight / But I win, they lose’ as I used to scream to myself walking to the school bus as a very nerdy 14 year-old and again as a 53 year-old on the way to the office. Its the threatening tone of the thing, it carries way more than the lyrics ever could, the medium really is the message here.

Side 2 opens with the definitive version of, most people’s, definitive AC/DC track – the audience ‘Angus’-ing for all they’re worth. ‘Whole Lotta Rosie’ hits ten times harder than it ever did in the studio, I can remember hearing this for the first time and just freezing up at how great it was, knowing I was listening to something so great I couldn’t quite process it. Hearing the audience getting involved throughout the whole song is amazing, can you imagine being there for this?

Interestingly I find myself listening to Malcolm during this one, how his playing just punches the track forwards, thickening the sound, making everything more percussive/concussive. I mourn that man.

I love ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Damnation’ mostly for Bon’s snide lyrics and change of pace, but ‘High Voltage’ has never been a live favourite of mine and even in this 5-minute version AC/DC are guilty of stretching it a touch too much. Mind you it is still better than anything most bands ever commit to vinyl, these are the standards.

The summit of the gig for the band in ’78 was the towering ‘Let There Be Rock’, the closest AC/DC ever got to prog – don’t shout at me, it has sections! This version yet again blows the studio cut away, every single overcharged note just sheds sparks, the way the solo plays with the crowd is masterful and when it ends it sounds like war.

Enter the Scotland kit: the band mucked about with ‘Fling Thing’ on their encore, but If You Want Blood wisely jettisons this for a stripped back run at ‘Rocker’. This is an absolute white-out land speed record attempt version, with Bon pretty much reduced to barking syllables by the end of it in order to keep up. Punk as fuck.

---

No matter what I do, where I’ve been, who I become, what I listen to, If You Want Blood just leaves me reeling, gawping like the 14 year-old I was when I first heard it – unsure of myself, awkward, just mainlining all this incredible POWER, feeding off it, feeling vindicated, angry, horny, everythingallatonce.

That power still lights me up, I still swivel straight into the Angus duckwalk and I can air guitar my way through every second of this album in this, my 53rd year to heaven.

I love that this LP has remained wholly unmolested and unimproved, its a sacred object I don’t want them to add ‘Dog Eat Dog’ back into the running order and package it with another set from a different night on the tour. This is all you get, this is all you ever need.

Eleven songs, blood and electricity.

1277 Down.

PS: Given half a brain I’d have scheduled this post for 30 April, If You Want Blood‘s 47th anniversary. I think my semi incompetence is endearing though.

*Henceforth If You Want Blood, so as not to add to the world’s pixel surplus.

**and what a beauty the ’78 Scotland kit was.