I'm at work last Friday and on lunch I see an email from Sirius XM radio saying they are giving away tickets for a "Town Hall" with AC/DC on Monday in about 45 minutes. As soon as the timer counts down I go for it and immediately find out I didn't get tickets...oh well.
A half hour later an email comes in from LiveNation saying AC/DC is doing a "Rock Or Bust" listening party at Webster Hall in NYC on Tuesday. I grab two free tickets and give my buddy Kev a call and we're in.
So obviously we're all hoping AC/DC will actually take the stage at this thing since we know the night before they are in NYC. We also know, according to the email blast, that we'll get a limited edition T-shirt, they're giving away a signed guitar and "other surprises."
So the tickets say doors open at 7:00pm We get down to Grand Central, hop the subway, walk a few blocks and turn the corner onto 11th Street at about 7:05. The entrance is about half way down the block and we're coming from the opposite direction of the line. When we get to the door we see the line goes all the way to the corner. When we get to the corner we see the line goes almost all the way back down to 12th Street...probably 400 or 500 people waiting to get in...it's gonna be a packed house!
We get on line and thankfully it moves fast because it's balls cold out and the wind is blowing. We're inside in 10 minutes where we are handed a laminate and postcard with the album track list.
As expected, The place is pretty much packed already. We see there is a giant video screen on the stage with the AC/DC cannons on each side. Definitely not going to see the band playing tonight, there's no instruments set up. Oh well, there's still a cool vibe in the room and quite a few videographers walking around filming the event.
We hop on line for the free T-shirt. When they give it to you they hole punch the laminate so you can't get more than one. It's a cool straight forward design.
Next up we see you can fill out tickets for drawings for the signed SG Gibson, 10 autographed posters and about a half dozen tattoos they are doing right then and there. Sadly we didn't win any of the above.
We spent about an hour of taking advantage of the free Bud Light (it's amazing how much better it tastes when it's free) and ran into our friend Anne. Then right at 8pm, Gary Dell'Abate (aka Baba Booey), the producer of the Howard Stern show, came out on stage to welcome the crowd and introduce a short video on the making of the "Play Ball" video.
After the 5 minute video, the album was played in order. It's great! I don't think any song is much of 3 minutes because all 11 songs were played in about 38 minutes or so! What does it sound like? AC/DC. Short, catchy and rockin! "Baptism By Fire" and "Rock The House", the eighth and ninth tracks were the standouts to me upon initial listen. Anything they pick to play on tour will fit in well with the classics!
At 8:40 Brian Johnson and Angus Young came out for a few minutes to thank the crowd for coming and wave to the fans and share a few laughs.
They called out producer Brendan O'Brien to introduce him to the crowd as well
They then left the stage and the drawing was done for the Gibson SG and that was it. The whole thing was over by about 8:45. Most folks left right away, but they let people hang and take advantage of the bar for another hour, so we got some more free beer and took some various photos.
Then we all hopped a cab and went to Manitoba's for a beer before heading back on the train home.
Would have been cool as hell if the band played, but it was a great time on a free ticket
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