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If You Want Blood You've Got It (1978)

Where the lyrics of If You Want Blood You've Got It take you, and where it was really made.

The title came from a one-word answer Bon Scott gave a journalist in July 1978, and the album was made from a single night at Glasgow's Apollo.

Key places

Glasgow night at the Apollo (1978)

Recording site Apollo Theatre — The concert at the Apollo Theatre in Glasgow on 30 April 1978 was recorded and used for the live tracks of this album. The encore was edited for release, and the full footage has never been released. Google Maps · Apple Maps

How to get there: See the map for directions.

Album story

Overview

• First live album by Australian hard rock band AC/DC
• Their only live album released during Bon Scott's lifetime
• Released in the UK and Europe on 13 October 1978, in the US on 21 November 1978, and in Australia on 27 November 1978
• Re-released in 1994 on Atco Records and in 2003 as part of the AC/DC Remasters series
• Ten tracks taken from a concert at the Apollo Theatre in Glasgow on 30 April 1978

Background

• Released six months after the previous studio album Powerage
• A 'best-of' package called 12 of the Best had been in the works, but was scrapped in favour of a live album
• Recorded during the 1978 Powerage tour
• Songs come from T.N.T., Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap, Let There Be Rock, and Powerage
• Last Bon Scott-era album produced by Harry Vanda and George Young
• Vanda and Young also produced the band's first five studio releases
• Author Clinton Walker wrote in his 1994 Bon Scott memoir that this album reversed the trend of stretched-out seventies live sets

Recording

• The concert at the Apollo Theatre in Glasgow was used for the live tracks
• The encore saw the band return dressed in the Scottish football strip, paying homage to the homeland of Scott and the Young brothers
• Dog Eat Dog was performed that night but removed from the album release
• The encore Fling Thing/Rocker was edited, dropping Fling Thing and cutting Angus Young's extended solo
• Angus's solo was cut because he walked around the audience with an early version of a wireless guitar lead
• That walk-around stage routine later accompanied Let There Be Rock
• Live Dog Eat Dog was released as the b-side of the Whole Lotta Rosie single in November 1978, Australia only
• Personnel: Bon Scott (lead vocals), Angus Young (lead guitar), Malcolm Young (rhythm guitar, backing vocals), Cliff Williams (bass, backing vocals), Phil Rudd (drums)
• Sound by Mike Scarfe (MHA AUDIO)

Cover

• Shot by Atlantic Records' staff photographer Jim Houghton after the show at Boston's Paradise Theater on 21 August 1978
• The idea came from Atlantic's art director Bob Defrin
• Front cover shows Angus Young impaled on stage with a guitar during a performance
• Back cover shows a bloodied Young lying facedown on the same stage, now deserted
• Title extends Scott's reply at the Day on the Green festival in July 1978, when asked what to expect from the band

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Tracklist

Sources: musicbrainz.org

Artist

Formation

• AC/DC are an Australian rock band formed in Sydney in November 1973 by brothers Malcolm and Angus Young.
• The band name comes from the AC/DC symbol on the adapter of their sister Margaret's sewing machine.
• Their music has been described as hard rock, blues rock and heavy metal, though the band calls itself simply a rock and roll band.
• Their early sound was rooted in Australian pub rock.

Members

• Angus Young (lead guitar) and Malcolm Young (rhythm guitar) were the founding core of the band until Malcolm retired in 2014.
• Bon Scott was lead vocalist until his death in February 1980.
• Brian Johnson became lead vocalist in 1980.
• Phil Rudd, Cliff Williams and Stevie Young have also played key roles.

Career

• Their 1980 album Back in Black became one of the best-selling albums of all time.
• The band has sold an estimated 200 million records worldwide.
• They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2003.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Reception

At release

• Malcolm Young told Metal Hammer in 1992 that he still preferred the old album
• Carlo Twist of Blender praised the album as the sound of AC/DC in Europe just before their 1979 US breakthrough
• Twist wrote that the audience's hysteria regularly cuts through the amps
• Canadian journalist Martin Popoff called it an obligatory live album hastily rushed out to capitalize on the band's growing stature
• Popoff praised its refreshing brevity and an amphetamine-supercharged retooling of 'Rocker'

Reappraisal

• Greg Prato of AllMusic wrote that AC/DC specialized in raw and bluesy hard rock while other bands experimented with disco or studio epics
• Eduardo Rivadavia of Ultimate Classic Rock wrote that few concert records can challenge the excitement and reckless abandon captured on the album
• Classic Rock magazine's readers' poll listed the album at No. 2 in its '50 Greatest Live Albums Ever'

Records

• Released 1978 in the UK, Europe, the US, and Australia
• Re-released 1994 on Atco Records
• Included in the AC/DC Remasters series in 2003

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Trivia

• Dog Eat Dog was performed on the night but removed from the album, then released worldwide in 2009 on the Backtracks boxed set
• Fling Thing is listed as a Scottish traditional song but is actually The Bonnie Banks o' Loch Lomond, and was the b-side of the Australian-only Jailbreak single
• The title song 'If You Want Blood (You've Got It)' appeared on the next album, Highway to Hell
• The whole Glasgow concert was filmed, but the complete footage has never been released
• Segments from the concert appeared on the Family Jewels DVD in 2005 and Plug Me In in 2007
• Gimme a Bullet was played during the sound-check, according to the Apollo Theatre's setlist

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

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