High voltage rock & roll returns to Australia in 2025 when AC/DC bring their Power Up world tour to our shores at the end of the year.
It's a long way to Australia when you're one of the biggest bands in the world, but the boys are on the rock & roll train back home for a series of live shows guaranteed to shake us all night long.AC/DC embarked on the Power Up (PWR/UP) tour last year in support of their 2020 album of the same name, making their way through Europe and North America.
Rumours have been swirling for months about AC/DC making a highly anticipated homecoming for their first Australian tour in a decade. AC/DC were last here in 2015 and 2016 for the Rock Or Bust tour.
It was during the Rock Or Bust run that vocalist Brian Johnson was forced to leave the band due to severe hearing loss and temporarily replaced by Guns N' Roses frontman Axl Rose.
"AC/DC was never about a message or a statement. Our only message was we want more people tuning in to rock music." - Angus Young
At the time, Johnson described the departure from AC/DC as the darkest days of his professional life. In a 2025 interview with Dan Rather on AXS TV, Brian recounted the suffocating isolation that followed his life-changing diagnosis.
"The first thing is when you're actually told that," Brian begins. The first thing I did was, I went out to the car, and I looked down and I went: 'Right, it's not cancer,' which is a stupid and morose thing to say but it was the only thing I could think of to make myself [feel] better.
"You feel alone the first two or three months, when I suddenly realised: I'll have to get hearing aids, that's what old men have. Then you suddenly realise, 'I am an old man'. . . It just happens, bits start falling off you when you get past 70," he laughs.
They were also the darkest days for the band since the tragic death of original vocalist Bon Scott in 1980. Rhythm guitarist Malcolm Young had retired in 2014 due to dementia; bassist Cliff Williams was considering his own exit, and drummer Phil Rudd had been placed under house arrest for death threats and drug possession charges.
When Malcolm died in 2017, it seemed AC/DC had finally reached an inevitable stopping point on the highway to Hell. However, with a stiff upper lip and the help of state-of-the-art hearing aids for Johnson, the band reunited in their Rock Or Bust line-up in 2018 to start work on their 17th studio album, 'Power Up'.
It was a rock & roll resurrection unlike any other. By 2020, the album's lead single 'Shot In The Dark' hit the airwaves and just like that, AC/DC were back in black. 'Power Up' was another dose of the high-octane, balls-out, riff-heavy, crotch-pumping rock voodoo AC/DC do so well, and we shouldn't have expected anything less.
AC/DC have never ventured far beyond the blues-based, three-power-chord formula that has served them so well for more than 50 years; and why would they? "AC/DC was never about a message or a statement," Angus Young told Kory Grow for Rolling Stone US in January 2021.
"Our only message was we want more people tuning in to rock music. There was no use for me ever coming in with song ideas that were not what we thought were AC/DC. So, it wasn't like we would come in with jazz or blues jams.
"You came in with what you felt were good ideas that was going to work with AC/DC. So that was always the guide for us. It's always been that from the beginning.
"We know the style. We know what we're looking for, so when people hear it, they go, 'Well, that is them. They have their own stamp on who they are.'"
AC/DC were formed in Sydney in 1973 by brothers Angus and Malcolm Young. Sons of working-class Scottish immigrants, they were raised in a large musical family that emigrated to Australia in 1963.
Their older brother George had already established an early Australian music dynasty with The Easybeats and Vanda & Young, and served as producer for AC/DC's early work. Malcolm's flawless rhythm lines provided the steady anchor for Angus' searing guitar solos and flavoursome embellishments.
Their sister Margaret suggested the name AC/DC (alternate current/direct current), taken from a vacuum cleaner. When Bon Scott joined on vocals in 1974, rock history was made and in 1975 AC/DC released their debut album 'High Voltage'.
Throughout the '70s, AC/DC became the sneering, sweaty and unrelenting face of Aussie pub rock, which was soon exported to the world. Today, AC/DC is a universal language that isn't so much spoken as it is screamed from the top of the lungs, with Devil's horns raised high to the sky.
The ubiquitous cultural influence of AC/DC cannot be overstated. Their songs remain timeless anthems; Malcolm and Angus consistently rank among the greatest rock guitarists of all time; and no one but Johnson can match the vocal intensity and timbre of Bon Scott, Axl Rose included.
For historical context, when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 East Germans rushed West German record stores to finally acquire the decadent Western rock music they had been denied so long under strict Communist rule, boosting sales by 300 per cent. The bestselling albums were the 'Dirty Dancing' film soundtrack and AC/DC.
The international set lists for the PWR/UP shows so far give a fair indication of what Australian audiences can expect: a smattering of songs from the new album interspersed between a barrage of classic hits and fan favourites.
Even if the world is going to Hell, it ain't a bad place to be when there's an AC/DC tour to look forward to.
AC/DC 2025 Tour Dates
Wed 12 Nov - Melbourne Cricket Ground* final ticketsSun 16 Nov - Melbourne Cricket Ground* final tickets
Fri 21 Nov - Accor Stadium (Sydney)* final tickets
Tue 25 Nov - Accor Stadium (Sydney)* final tickets
Sun 30 Nov - bp Adelaide Grand Final* selling fast
Thu 4 Dec - Optus Stadium (Perth)* final tickets
Mon 8 Dec - Optus Stadium (Perth)* new show
Sun 14 Dec - Suncorp Stadium (Brisbane)* final tickets
Thu 18 Dec - Suncorp Stadium (Brisbane)* final tickets
