AC/DC is out on tour again. And on April 18th, they played at the Rose Bowl. Former AC/DC singer Axl Rose attended the show with Slash. Frontman Brian Johnson was praised for great charisma during his performance, but he was visibly struggling with his health.
And what Axl Rose saw wasn’t exactly thunderstruck. Axl Rose saw Brian Johnson’s voice almost blow out during “Shoot To Thrill.”
Let’s talk about the song. It’s an absolute banger. But if you’ve ever tried screaming those high notes, you know it’s brutal. Brian Johnson himself once said this is one of the hardest AC/DC songs to sing live because the chorus is relentless.
A fan posted on acdcfans.net, “Brian seemed to have a trainer off stage right in addition to his usual assistant and the monitor engineer. He was turning to who I assumed to be the trainer more than he was the monitor engineer. They are definitely watching him close and the device on his leg must have helped cause it was on and off and you could see him ask for it again later on.
You could tell he was in a little pain but he spent more time laughing at the situation , pointing to it and making jokes with the people up front . A few times , he grabbed his throat. He was loosing a little of his power about three fourth of the way through but it was barely perceptible . He’d grab his throat , shake his head a little then go right back and belt out something perfectly and nail a scream.
Very few problems with the in ears relatively speaking. Maybe 2 or 3 times he looked over at the monitor engineers while grabbing his ears but nothing excessive like past legs. Need to remember that despite the hearing issues , Brian has been fighting with in ears since 1996, he has always bitched about them so 2 or 3 complaints is normal.”
Another fan said, “Great Show. Brian was definitely stronger than over the summer. Band sounded spectacular to my ears.
Brians “foot” issue is starting to look more like some sort of calf cramp type thing /maybe even hip or lower back. He was limping around the stage , at times severely! A few songs in, for the first time he stopped by his little crew at stage right and they strapped some sorta electron therapy type thing to his leg. It was on and off a few times during the show . It had a little red light on it .
Despite being in obvious pain, Brian was absolutely hilarious. Walking up to the edge of the stage looking at us between verses and then pointing down at the new device on his leg going. And shaking his head and shrugging his shoulders. He appears to have a younger male trainer off stage right helping him as well, might be one of his regular fitness coaches. Along those lines , he has clearly dropped at least 10 pounds and has more lung power! He had the trainer and the monitor engineers laughing their asses off at times.”
