Out of key?

Figuring out whether most bands are playing out of key is a science. It's not difficult to detect when, say, The Living End or - well, insert post-1970s-band-that-I've-never-heard-of-here - drop a semi-semitone on a hangover.

But AC/DC are different. Not because of the backing - there are few things more unambiguous than the perfect E-major in-keyness of Malcolm Young every day of his adult life. Rather, because of the vocalist - or 'vocalist' - Brian Johnston.

I know this is not the first time that this blog has raised the spectre of a band more associated with Triple-M listening, Hooters-frequenting, Bacon-Busting subscribers* than with vegetarian nerds with macho dreams. Who still watch 'Thriller' on a regular basis. But still.

Procrastinating for a few hours like I generally do on Sunday nights, I noticed that The Australian's website contained footage of AC/DC's 'Black Ice' tour, recorded in Auckland last week. The exerpt was 'Rock n' Roll Train' - another piece frequently discussed on the blog.

So, what was wrong with the performance? For the first 10 seconds, I couldn't put my finger on it. The performance sounded like two songs playing at the same time. Then I realised that the problem was with the singing: Brian started off in no key at all, then gradually moved up to something approaching the 'correct' key.

The most disturbing part of the whole experience was the fact that Brian's unusually heightened musical ineptitude creating a kind of Brechtian alienation effect - that is, it enabled me to sit back and listen to AC/DC with my ears and brain instead of my testicles for a change. Figuratively speaking.

They are all alarmingly old. And ugly. Has anyone else noticed this before?

What's more, as Robert Forster said in The Monthly a while back: a 50-year-old Angus looks quite strange in school uniform.

It's all sacrilege, I know it is, but it was only temporary!

The other members suddenly (and temporarily!) looked like geriatric old men who had wandered into a film casting session for the 'Rock Band: AC/DC' computer game. Cliff Williams, the bass player, was caked in makeup. Phil Rudd, the drummer, looked as if he was trying to remember where he put his slippers. The fact that there is a gigantic mass of the world's population - including, and especially me! - who loved these odd little old men totally mystified me in that brief instant.

But then I listened to an awesome version of 'War Machine' in Berlin on YouTube, which made it all better. That lurching, 30-second thicket of self-realisation was quickly banished.


*i.e. the restaurant, not the actual biological formations. (Apologies for Mark Dapin for the use of asterisks: sometimes it's the only symbol that will do).