BABY PLEASE DON'T GO!

AC/DC ABRUZZO has made it!! We managed to take our flag from Oslo, Norway to Birmingham, UK. We thank the Gods of Rock’n’Roll who protected us through this rock'n'roll journey throughout Europe.

Obviously we were in Wilkes Barre for AC/DC comeback last October but it was the Arena Tour in Europe what we really wanted. We knew we had to do it. It was now or never! We put our careers and social lives on hold (from our family to our girlfriends), we were pitiless towards our bank accounts ignoring the world recession.

“Project AC/DC Abruzzo” finally got to the end of its first stage. The second stage, whose details we can't reveal at the moment, will start soon.

Ciao from Birmingham

AC/DC Arena Tour - Europe 2009

18 Feb Oslo NO Telenor Arena (with AC/DC ABRUZZO)
20 Feb Stockholm SE The Globe (with AC/DC ABRUZZO)
22 Feb Stockholm SE The Globe (with AC/DC ABRUZZO)
25 Feb Paris FR Bercy (with AC/DC ABRUZZO)
27 Feb Paris FR Bercy (with AC/DC ABRUZZO)
01 Mar Antwerp BE Sportpaleis (with AC/DC ABRUZZO)
03 Mar Antwerp BE Sportpaleis (with AC/DC ABRUZZO)
05 Mar Leipzig DE Halle 1
07 Mar Dusseldorf DE ISS Dome (with AC/DC ABRUZZO)
09 Mar Oberhausen DE KoPi Arena (with AC/DC ABRUZZO)
11 Mar Bremen DE AWD Dome
13 Mar Rotterdam NL Ahoy
15 Mar Dortmund DE Westfallenhalle
17 Mar Prague CZ O2 Arena (with AC/DC ABRUZZO)
19 Mar Milan IT Datch Forum (with AC/DC ABRUZZO)
21 Mar Milan IT Datch Forum (with AC/DC ABRUZZO)
23 Mar Budapest HU Papp László Sportarena (with AC/DC ABRUZZO)
25 Mar Frankfurt DE Festhalle
27 Mar Munich DE Olympiahalle
29 Mar Zurich CH Hallenstadion
31 Mar Barcelona ES Sant Jordi (with AC/DC ABRUZZO)
02 Apr Madrid ES Palacio de los Deportes (with AC/DC ABRUZZO)
04 Apr Bilbao ES el Bizkaia Arena (with AC/DC ABRUZZO)

6 Apr Zurich CH Hallenstadion
14 Apr London GB O2 Arena (with AC/DC ABRUZZO)
16 Apr London GB O2 Arena (with AC/DC ABRUZZO)
18 Apr Dublin IE O2 Arena (with AC/DC ABRUZZO)
21 Apr Manchester GB MEN (with AC/DC ABRUZZO)
23 Apr Birmingham GB NEC (with AC/DC ABRUZZO)

MANCHESTER, UK MEN Arena, April 21, 2009

SETLIST

1. Rock'n'roll Train
2. Hell ain't a bad place to be
3. Back in Black
4. Big Jack
5. Dirty Deeds
6. Shot Down in Flames
7. Thunderstruck
8. Black Ice
9. The Jack
10. Hell's Bells
11. Shoot to Thrill
12. War Machine
13. Anything Goes
14. You Shook Me All Night Long
15. TNT
16. Whole Lotta Rosie
17. Let there be Rock
18. Highway to Hell

19. For Those About to Rock

AC/DC ABRUZZO OFFICIAL REPORT

AC/DC Abruzzo survived the horde of "touts” (or scalpers) who were in the area around the MEN arena and saw another great AC/DC show! We were quite impressed with their organisational skills considering that we have been almost everywhere in Europe. They were stratigically positioned at each croassroad on the way from the city centre to the Arena and were extremely efficient in buying any spare tickets from fans and in reselling at 4-6 times the face value price. They could communicate among themselves by phone and they called each other “colleagues”.  The "capo dei capi" seemed to be a coloured guy working just in front of the box office, with very polite manners and with a map of the arena in hands to show the customers where the seats were. Very professional. From time to time he would greet some police officer or local manager walking by... He was known and respected. A good "british mafioso"... You could actually tell we were not too far from the Old Trafford, the legendary football stadium where touts are abviously very powerful.

The MEN is a very nice arena. It looked very intimate (very small standing section). This time we chose to go for seats (Angus side). When the show began you could tell the difference from London. The crowd was much warmer (but definitely not as warm as in Dublin). The band , on the contrary, seemed more energetic than in Dublin especially Brian and Angus. At times Angus actually looked as if he was the same Angus we used to watch in videos from the Razor’s Edge Tour, especially during the duckwalking on Rock’n’Roll Train, Dirty Deeds and Thunderstruck. His hair is getting much longer. And he moves extremely fast! We loved when Brian pointed him when singing "Son of the Devil" and when he threw his cap away with his hand before screaming at the end of Dirty Deeds. 

Highlight of the night for AC/DC Abruzzo was Shoot To Thrill. We loved this song throughout the whole tour, although it was not one of our favourites. It was a very energetic performance. TNT was also very powerful and the audience seemed to like it a lot as well as Rosie (the crowd screamed so loud that Brian stopped singing at the beginning). The Brits definitely love this song!

Manchester was another “bonus” gig for AC/DC Abruzzo which wasn’t planned after the dates came out. There were several gigs that were added to our list simply because it wouldn’t have been ethical and respectful not to go after so many years of waiting. We kept going knowing that once they're gone, they're gone. CARPE DIEM. Open air shows won’t be the same for us. In stadiums we won’t be able to be so close to the stage, make eye contact with Angus, Brian or Cliff etc. so we tried to get as much as possible now.

And now we’re getting close to Birmingham, where the first part of Project AC/DC Abruzzo will come to a conclusion.

Stay tuned.

C'arvedom.

AC/DC ABRUZZO YOUTUBE CHANNEL

Great show in Manchester yesterday! While waiting for AC/DC Abruzzo's official report you can subscribe to our Official YouTube channel. A lot of exclusive material from our tour will be made available in the next few weeks.

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DUBLIN MONSTERS OF ROCK

O2 Arena, Dublin April 18, 2009

SETLIST

1. Rock'n'roll Train
2. Hell ain't a bad place to be
3. Back in Black
4. Big Jack
5. Dirty Deeds
6. Shot Down in Flames
7. Thunderstruck
8. Black Ice
9. The Jack
10. Hell's Bells
11. Shoot to Thrill
12. War Machine
13. Anything Goes
14. You Shook Me All Night Long
15. TNT
16. Whole Lotta Rosie
17. Let there be Rock
18. Highway to Hell

19. For Those About to Rock

AC/DC ABRUZZO OFFICIAL REPORT

In Dublin AC/DC Abruzzo got what it was looking for: a great dose of pure, tough, sweaty, wild rock'n'roll with a roaring rock'n'roll crowd. The Dublin O2 arena proved to be an ideal venue for a rock show: it reminded us of the Hammersmith Apollo Theatre in London, with a relatively small semicircular standing section with seats above it, just like a gallery in a theatre. The crowd was definitely one of the best of the entire tour, jumping, screaming, singing, dancing etc. Great security staff this time. AC/DC Abruzzo learned a new word in Dublin, “to mosh”, which was marked on the tickets in the following sentence “No crowdsurfing/No moshing". Apparently, nobody took it too seriously; actually, a lot of people did the exact opposite! We witnessed constant crowdsurfing going on in the standing section where we were, perfectly executed, almost artistically, with people surfing back and forth during the show. During For Those about to Rock we lost count of the crowdsurfers: apparently everybody was waiting for this song just like the perfect wave!

Everybody seemed to have a wonderful time, including the band. Brian was in very good shape, and looked very inspired. Angus looks younger and faster at every show. He must have signed a pact with the Devil or, maybe, it is the Devil that signed a pact with him!!! AH AH AH AH

The other boys are just real rock'n'roll marines. Everything looked in perfect "working order". A lethal War Machine of Rock'n'Roll! 

It’s hard to find the highlight of the night; probably the first 3 songs. The crowd was so energetic and loud that even the band looked surprised. We were pleasantly surprised too. Maybe it was the Guinnes, maybe the Irish temper/attitude or maybe the fact that they were giving energy drinks for free outside the O2 (we did love the idea actually!). Or maybe the three factors combined. Anyway we probably would put the Dublin show just after Paris, Milan and Barcelona although we have to wait the end of the arena tour to start with our official AC/DC Abruzzo rankings.

Another good reason to rock in Dublin was the presence of our rocking friends from AC/DC Italia,Kapri and Marcom. And their flag! KETTAFFATTO?? We salute you!

See you in Manchester.

EXCLUSIVE VIDEO FROM AC/DC ITALIA IN PARTNERSHIP WITH AC/DC ABRUZZO

AC/DC ABRUZZO'S PROVERB OF THE MONTH

La Pruvedènze chiude 'na finéstre e aàpre nu bbalecòne

ENGLISH TRANSLATION

When one door closes, a bigger one opens

DUBLIN!!!

What a great night for rock'n'roll!! The Dublin show was absolutely brilliant!! Fantastic crowd and wonderful venue. One of the best of the entire European tour! We salute the IRISH! And we thank all the fans who came to say hello before and after the show showing their support for "Project AC/DC Abruzzo". Big grazie also to those who helped us to solve the ticket problem! ;-)

Report coming soon!

O2 Arena, London April 16, 2009

ANGUS "ON FIRE"!

O2 Arena, London April 16, 2009

SETLIST

1. Rock'n'roll Train
2. Hell ain't a bad place to be
3. Back in Black
4. Big Jack
5. Dirty Deeds
6. Shot Down in Flames
7. Thunderstruck
8. Black Ice
9. The Jack
10. Hell's Bells
11. Shoot to Thrill
12. War Machine
13. Anything Goes
14. You Shook Me All Night Long
15. TNT
16. Whole Lotta Rosie
17. Let there be Rock
18. Highway to Hell

19. For Those About to Rock

AC/DC ABRUZZO OFFICIAL REPORT

Another show under the belt for AC/DC Abruzzo. 17 shows so far. Not bad at all. But we still want more!

SCHOOL DAYS

However, London left us with mixed feelings. Someone once said AC/DC represented "the ultimate middle finger aimed at the establishment..."! AC/DC Abruzzo fully understood the strong aversion to all sort of imposed codes of conduct and stupid etiquette in the London O2 arena when facing all sorts of ridiculous warnings, public announcements, semantically empty sentences and weird pseudo-nazi behaviours by the staff and security guys all of which are totally inappropriate for a rock'n'roll show. Especially after seeing AC/DC play in 10 different countries. Maybe they are good for Michael Jackson, but definetely ot for AC/DC.

We will skip the details. The O2 arena in London was just the polished and refined version of what we saw in Prague (O2 arena too) where they actually used airport scanners for each single bag and person. No kidding. And dozens of security managers everywhere wearing a suit and headphones, a beautidul mixture of Star Trek and James Bond movies...

Ok, times have changed and we know that even rock'n'roll is now a victim of this corporate bullshit and anti-terrorism crap mixed with UK anti-hooligan policies but hey, we're talking about an AC/DC show here, the same AC/DC show we saw in Paris, Milan or Barcelona where everybody seemed to have a fucking great time without being hurt.

When in Rome do as the Roman do

Actually no. We did as the Abruzzeses do. And it worked pretty well! We rocked the way we wanted and we showed our flag during The Jack and Let There Be Rock, as usual. Even if they had told us not to show our flag inside the venue ('Ngulammamet!).

We had a great time! We were just disappointed about seeing how calm and quiet was the London crowd. Even during TNT. People in the seats actually looked bored!! We must confess we had high expectations for this show, especially after being at the Hammersmith gig in 2003. Maybe too high. Something in the same league as Paris, Milan or Barcelona. Probably it was just the consequence of the ball breaking security policies we mentioned above.

Apart from that we got another excellent performance by the band. Ok, Brian fucked up during the Jack (we are sure it was because of the headphones problem he has as he told us in Stockholm) but he was just great for the whole show. We just loved how Angus immediately took control of the situation, stepped in and gave a cue to Brian to come out of the empasse. What a professional!!

We have to admit that the British crowd does love Whole Lotta Rosie (just the first part, at least) during which they screamed very loud. Brian made us sing "when it comes to lovin'" both nights. They also seem to like Let There Be Rock a lot too, when there was some serious jumping and some crowd surfing in our section (2 brave surfers).

R'n'R (Tube) Train

As we wrote in the previous post we seriously ran the risk not to go to the show this time! When we were supposed to take the metro to go to the O2 arena the Jubilee line stopped working and we got stuck at Canada Water, more than 2 hours walking from the venue. All the buses were full and no chance of finding an empty cab... So, after a few minutes of panic, we made the decision to improvise some old-school hitchhicking showing our inseparable Italian flag and guess what? IT DID WORK! A guy (Andy) made his cab driver stop and took us and another guy, Mark, onboard. During the ride to the O2 arena Andy told us about his first AC/DC concert in Donnington in 1984 while Mark told us about his passion for lasagne and PERONI beer!!! Peroni, Peroni, Peroni!!! Ah ah ah.

We salute you.

MIXED FEELINGS

BRAIANNO!

WITH PATRICK WHO WAS WITH US IN HAMMERSMITH IN 2003

HIGHWAY TO HELL by Vince (friend of ours AKA The French painter AKA Dirty shoes)