AC/DC 1979: “Highway to Hell” on Dutch TV – Bon Scott at full throttle
Filmed on 13 July 1979 for the Dutch music show “Countdown”, two weeks before the album came out: AC/DC pulled the rare clip from the vaults in 2019 for the 40th anniversary.
Photo: Lost Parables from Ballymena, Northern Ireland. ©jameshughes / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0 (cropped and resized)
Single video: YouTube · acdcVEVO · youtube.com
On 13 July 1979 AC/DC performed “Highway to Hell” for the Dutch TV music show “Countdown” – recorded at the Rijnhal in Arnhem, about two weeks before the album of the same name was released. The clip shows the band with the brand-new title track that would soon become their anthem. In July 2019 AC/DC shared the video again for the album’s 40th anniversary, after breaking a long silence on social media. The footage had previously appeared on the 2007 DVD box set “Plug Me In”.
On screen is the line-up that also recorded the album: singer Bon Scott, guitarists Angus and Malcolm Young, bassist Cliff Williams – still a relative newcomer at the time – and drummer Phil Rudd. For “Highway to Hell” the band worked for the first time with producer Robert John “Mutt” Lange, who replaced the long-standing team of Harry Vanda and George Young. The album came out on 27 July 1979 in Europe and the UK, and on 3 August in the US.
“Highway to Hell” delivered the commercial breakthrough after years of relentless touring and became AC/DC’s first million-selling album in the US. It was also Bon Scott’s last: he died on 19 February 1980. With Brian Johnson the band recorded “Back in Black” that same year – dedicated to Scott and one of the best-selling albums of all time. The “Countdown” clip captures a moment just before the summit.