Seattle Subsonic

AC/DC's Live Wire, Hells Belles, I'm a Stranger Here Myself, Nothing Better

July 12th, 2010

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I’ve always been an AC/DC fan, always, for as long as I can remember, as long as I’ve owned records they’ve been there, “I’ll give you black sensations up and down your spine. If you’re into evil, you’re a friend of mine…”. Two of the first four albums I had were AC/DC, Dirty Deeds and Back in Black. They struck a chord with me, and of course millions of others. I got my first guitar way back then in 6th grade and started learning the likes of Highway to Hell, TNT, Sin City, Night Prowler. Live Wire was one that really caught me though. It was so very simple. I knew that. Even as a beginner on the guitar, I knew it was simple but that it had POWER. What the song lacked in complexity it made up for in pure and vibrant energy, made up for and then some really. In short, it simply rocked. There’s no other way to describe it. When I think of rock and roll, I think of AC/DC. Let There Be Rock. Indeed!
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Oddly though, I don’t listen to them very often anymore. My CD player has lately been filled with The Cult and Yes, Iron Maiden, even admittedly Kings of Leon who have three songs I quite like (though I did have to edit one myself). But I can’t honestly remember the last time I put an AC/DC CD in the player and cranked it up to eleven. The things we like go in cycles though. We all naturally drift though bands and books and movies and whatever else so that the years might go by without even the thought of popping in a particular CD. The drift of time didn’t erase it but just pushed other things to the foreground. I realized this when a certain woman I know named Lucy told me she heard Live Wire once back in the mid 1990′s and simply had to have the CD and that it is still in regular rotation in her CD player more than ten years later. Lucy and I are it seems about the last of the bunch that listens only to CDs, but that’s another story. The point is simply that she instilled in me the realization that it had been years since I popped High Voltage into the CD player, or on the record player where back in 6th grade it lived for months on end.
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As luck would have it though, I heard Hells Belles was playing at the West Seattle Festival. For those who don’t know, Hells Belles is a group of women who from everything I’ve managed to gather do a most excellent job of covering AC/DC. I’d recently reviewed their singer’s other band, Witchburn, and was impressed enough to have every faith that Hells Belles would indeed do what they do well. So I set out Friday night to catch their show at the stage right in front of Easy Street Records after which I’d hoped to step into Matador right there across the street for a margarita or two with Herradura Repasado tequila.
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So I went to West Seattle, parked the Jetta, and walked over to the stage with my notebook and a copy of Bill Bryson’s I’m a Stranger Here Myself. What can I say? I’m the guy that always has a book. Between bands and beers, I like to read. The problem Friday though was that when I got there right at 9:00, when I walked past all the festival booths already closed for the evening and past the bars that were full, there was another band on the stage right there in front of Easy Street. I had no idea who they were but they were not playing AC/DC, they were not a group of five women, they were not Hells Belles. Perhaps it was just my disappointment but what they played was not good. It was dull and soundless. I’d wanted The Jack, Shoot to Thrill, She’s Got Balls, but there was only this lifeless atonal mass issuing from the stage. The guitar player even wore a pink shirt. No, this would not do. I escaped into the nearest bar and figured I must have the date wrong or that perhaps someone in Hells Belles had gotten sick and they’d been forced to cancel. I ordered a beer and a monstrous slice of pizza at Talarico’s and then another beer, and another, and I read. Bryson’s book is about living abroad and then coming back to America and noticing all the odds and ends that are different. I lived in Korea for eight years so I could indeed relate. And well, I was a stranger in another sense too. For years, I was in the band, but now there I was playing at critic. I had to smile at that.
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So even without AC/DC, the night was not a loss. Beer, book and pizza can make a good evening. I made a few notes too, thought perhaps I could salvage an article from the event. It wasn’t a bad night, but still, I wanted those tunes. I wanted Touch Too Much, Girls Got Rhythm, Riff Raff, Big Balls, Problem Child, and yes of course, Hells Bells. And then I heard someone say, “Oh yeah, that AC/DC cover band is playing down at the other stage.”
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The other stage???
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Yes, the other stage. A few blocks down there was another stage, but given the noise at the closer stage and the noise of the bar, I had no idea there was another band playing down the street. Sigh. I finished my beer and hoofed it down the street in time to at least catch the singer, Jamie Nova, as she was preparing to leave so I could apologize for not catching the show, for not being quite bright enough to realize there were two stages. I asked her to let me know when they were playing again. “Tomorrow in Yakima.” I was tempted, but told her I’d be in touch. As I left, I had a song in my head, a song I hadn’t put on in ages. When I got home I found the CD, popped it in, and cranked up the volume. And there it was. That bass that starts on the wondrous B … bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum … and then the guitar A … E … B …
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“Well, if you’re looking for trouble, I’m the man to see …”
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AC/DC. For pure rock and roll, there’s nothing better.
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There aren’t any Seattle Hells Belles shows coming up, but I’ll keep checking the schedule, making sure to find a place where there’s only one stage where I can settle in the back with a beer in one hand and a book in the other and finally catch the show.
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Dave

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