LIVE: AC/DC with AMYL & THE SNIFFERS and SOUTHERN RIVER BAND – PERTH, 4 Dec 2025

Shane | 5 December 2025 | Reply

LIVE: AC/DC with AMYL & THE SNIFFERS and SOUTHERN RIVER BAND – PERTH, 4 Dec 2025
Optus Stadium, Perth, Western Australia
Reviewed by Shane Pinnegar
Photography by Luke Baker

Australia’s favourite and most successful export (and import) aren’t very Australian except via memories nowadays, but they’ll always hold a special place in our hearts having forged their sound in working class 1960’s and 70’s Oz.

AC/DC – pretty much the Angus Young & Brian Johnson revue now – still command a fanatical following around the country, as evidenced by them selling out two stadium shows in most states, and the black T-shirt brigade were out in force for the first Perth gig.

And boy, did they deliver a sturm und drang of ultra-amplified stadium-sized pub rock which thrilled the masses on a Thursday full moon night, giving us a very good show – albeit one with a couple of issues.

First, though, they enlisted two of THE most Aussie bands currently treading the boards – perhaps to make up for them now consisting of an expat Scot and Aussie living in The Netherlands, a Geordie based in America, two yanks and another Scottish-born scion of the Young clan.

Local legends-in-the-making Southern River Band opened the show determined to make the most of the opportunity but were hampered by the sound guy not pushing a fader up, so all we heard of their first two songs was the thin foldback echoing from the stage. Once that was resolved they proved what long-term fans have long known: Thornlie’s worst-kept secret are on a one-way mission to huge stages the world over.

Even though the sound was restored, the vocal mix was messy and muddy – and would remain so for all three bands. Hard to believe at an event of this magnitude, doubly so when Metallica at this same venue just five weeks ago delivered pristine sound in every corner of the fifty-ish-thousand capacity stadium. From the stage, though, the four-piece were having the time of their lives.

“Ahhh mate,” exclaims frontman Cal Kramer, “this is unreal. Obviously.”

The Streets Don’t Lie, the Bernard Fanning-penned No Such Time and Vice City III all kicked arse and caught the attention of many one-eyed Accadacca fans, while the turbo-boogie of Stan Qualen slashed and ripped like a feral beast escaping a cage. It’s a blinder of a set packing more guitar solos into a half hour than most bands do in a full show.

Amyl & the Sniffers are a razor-sharp force of nature having toured the world relentlessly for the last few years, and their confidence is staggering – and justified. They deliver an electric sixty-minute set firing on all cylinders, again despite the swampy vocal sound.

Amy Turner & Co’s raw bogan punk energy and raucous anthems of empowerment prickle with spiky, feral attitude and they cram a LOT into their allotted hour – no less than nineteen songs, some racing like Formula One drivers, while Turner pranced, danced and skipped around the huge stage like she was born to be there.

[Show picture list]

Guided By Angels, Knifey, Some Mutts Can’t Be Muzzled, U Should Not Be Doing That and closers Jerkin’ and Hertz are all incendiary, and we can’t help but wonder if they’ll be headlining here in ten or twenty years.

Which brings us to the main attraction. I know it’s going to be an unpopular opinion, but AC/DC’s show was good – but not great.

Thirty or forty thousand of the fifty K who attended will probably disagree. The roars whenever they played a classic (of which there were many) were probably heard all the way from Optus Stadium to Joondalup – in fact there were apparently two noise complaints all the way from Two Rocks – but there was some trading on former glories, and that vocal sound was still bad enough that we could only make out bits and pieces of Johnson’s between song banter.

In the leadup to the show many were wondering who was even in AC/DC in 2025? We all know Stevie Young – he deputised for Uncle Malcolm in 1988 and then from 2014 when Mal’s dementia became too debilitating for him to continue. But the rhythm section? Phil Rudd was retired after problems with drugs and the law, and Cliff Williams retired a few years ago.

In their stead are Matt Laug – an American studio vet with a resume longer than the queue to the many stadium bars – and Chris Chaney – another prolific studio muso since his start in Jane’s Addiction. All three are rock solid but leave the charisma and creativity to Angus and Brian (aged 70 and 78 respectively, by the way, and far more spry and lithe than might be expected of a couple of pensioners).

“Perth, where the fuck have you been?” Johnson cackles after opener If You Want Blood (You’ve Got It), a sea of black t-shirts and flashing devil horns roaring in approval.

[Show picture list]

This being the PWR/UP tour, there are two tracks from their latest album of the same name: Demon Fire and Shot In The Dark, the title track from 2000’s Stiff Upper Lip, the mighty Thunderstruck from 1990’s The Razor’s Edge album – everything else dated from 1982 or earlier.

But when you have a catalogue of early classics like that, how can you not lean into them?

To their credit there are a couple of unexpected deeper cuts in Shot Down In Flames, Have A Drink On Me and Shoot To Thrill, but the biggest cheers are reserved for the cream of the crop and after Stiff Upper Lip it is all killer no filler: Back In Black is tremendous, Hells Bells – complete with bell prop, Highway To Hell, Jailbreak, Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap, High Voltage, You Shook Me All Night Long, Whole Lotta Rosie (the huge inflatable Rosie of tours past has been retired, a digital Rosie now gracing the video screens, and she’s been on a diet and trimmed down, too), and a frenetic Let There Be Rock are all AC/DC family singalongs, huge crowd pleasers.

An encore of T.N.T. and the ubiquitous For Those About To Rock (We Salute You) – complete with canons – are the cherry on a very enjoyable cake, ending the two-and-a-quarter-hour event in explosive fashion.

We have to expect that this may be AC/DC’s last tour – they’re not getting any younger and even pocket rocket Angus will have to hang up the red velvet schoolboy’s cap at some stage – but if that is the case then they went out on as high a note as could be expected given that they’re 66% cover band now. That’s not a criticism, just an observation, and they still put on a good enough show to justify the exercise. If only they’d got the vocal sound right, maybe it would have seemed like a great show rather than a good one.

Set List – AC/DC

If You Want Blood (You’ve Got It)
Back in Black
Demon Fire
Shot Down in Flames
Thunderstruck
Have a Drink on Me
Hells Bells
Shot in the Dark
Stiff Upper Lip
Highway to Hell
Shoot to Thrill
Sin City
Jailbreak
Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap
High Voltage
Riff Raff
You Shook Me All Night Long
Whole Lotta Rosie
Let There Be Rock

Encore:
T.N.T.
For Those About to Rock (We Salute You)

Set List – Amyl & the Sniffers

Balaclava Lover Boogie
Don’t Need a Cunt (Like You to Love Me)
Doing in Me Head
Snakes
Starfire 500
Guided by Angels
Big Dreams
Knifey
Security
GFY
Chewing Gum
Pigs
Some Mutts (Can’t Be Muzzled)
Bailing on Me
Facts
Tiny Bikini
U Should Not Be Doing That
Jerkin’
Hertz