Stephen McGinty: A cut above as we go live on the Highway to Hell

Published on Friday 3 July 2009 21:42

IF I had to have the name of a band shaven into my scalp, I suppose it would be AC/DC. They were, after all, the soundtrack to my youth. On a family holiday, I refused to spend a penny of my hard-saved cash so, on the last day, I could splurge on seven albums, which was anathema to my father, who pointed out they could be taped for free. When The Tube unveiled its "heavy metal" special, my mates and I waited breathlessly for the band's long-promised appearance and made do with a 30-

We haunted the quarterly record fairs held in the Mitchell Library in Glasgow for rare imports, such as Jailbreak '74, on which Scott sang the mournful Ride On, and those bootlegs, muffled illegal recordings of live performances, which sounded as if the recorder had wangled a seat in the car park, but which we cherished for inching us that much closer to the band.

In 1986, Christmas slipped down to the summer, when my favourite author, Stephen King, decided to ask his favourite band to write the soundtrack to his directorial debut, Maximum Overdrive (a film best viewed through your fingers, not on account of any deliberate fights, but for its quality, which is truly horrific). However, it bequeathed the world the classic track Who Made Who. The music video was to be shot in London and required an army of Angus Young lookalikes dressed in velvet shorts, blazers and school caps, armed with cardboard Gibson SG guitars. We all applied, and later resentfully watched those who won.

My mother, meanwhile, as good Catholic mothers are wont to do, feared demonic possession, and so Highway to Hell was kept tucked at the back of the record collection. Unfortunately, my best mate secured an AC/DC baseball jersey which, while it had Angus doing the duck walk on the front, had on the back a tombstone on which was chiselled "Anti Christ Devil's Child". Didn't matter that the letters actually stood for Alternating Current/Direct Current with the band's title lifted off a plug, any time Dave visited I had to choreograph an elaborate, seamless dance that involved blocking Dave's back from my mother's sight. It was like a episode of Mr Bean on speed.

I almost envy the young fans of today who have instant access to every song, video and website, and minute-by-minute updates of each song as it's played live anywhere in the world. But as I joined the throng on the pitch at Hampden Park on Tuesday night – and what a rare pleasure to bounce around in balmy summer heat – I couldn't help but be distracted by the number of fans who insisted on viewing the concert through the screen of their mobile phone. The chap to my left stared constantly at his iPhone, sending e-mail with the bored expression of a bus-queue hostage. They could, of course, have declared: "The electricity of excitement is too much. I fear I may explode. Here is my last will and testament." But, well, I doubt it.

Simon Jenkins wrote in The Scotsman this week that live performance is the only thing that will drag people away from their screens, but too many still can't relate to life unless it's in the prison of pixels to be enjoyed while the precious "live" moment passes them by. Luckily for my Byronic locks, another fan beat me to the clippers and, on Tuesday night, on the concrete patio of a Glasgow pub, it was he who had fellow fans queuing up to be photographed with his barnet, into which "AC/DC" was neatly shaven, complete with the requisite lightning bolt.