AC/DC are no strangers to the live album – to date they’ve released five sets on CD and many more via the mediums of DVD and video. ‘Live at River Plate’ is the latest of these, celebrating the bands return to Buenos Aires, Argentina after thirteen long years. It is also the first live set released in twenty years (although this could be considered a little misleading as many sets were released exclusively in visual formats). Enough facts and figures though, let’s tackle the more pressing issue of whether it’s any good?
‘Live at River Plate’ is possibly the cleanest live recording of AC/DC to date. Everything sounds sharp, from the roar of the crowd to the croak of Brian Johnson. The band sounds as honest as you’d expect from a band who’ve always championed the basic guitar, drum and bass format. There are bands with a much thicker sound out there but AC/DC remain a great example of what can be achieved with traditional instruments. On that front, everything is great. The track listing is extremely similar to the last couple of live DVD’s they have released – the classics are all there with a handful of tracks from 2008’s ‘Black Ice’ album to freshen the set up a little.
The old adage is that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, although in the case of AC/DC I don’t know why you’d want to. There’s nothing wrong with ‘Live at River Plate’ – if anything, it simply reinforces the idea that AC/DC have only got better with age – but if you’ve already got a couple of live AC/DC albums on the CD rack there’s very little here to tempt the cash out of your wallet.
3/5
‘Live at River Plate’ by AC/DC is available now on Columbia UK.
AC/DC links: Official Website|Facebook
Words by Richard Heaven (@richardheaven)
