Maybe some of the other young whippersnappers there will.
At LAT, "Brian Johnson, AC/DC all set to shake the Coachella kids up":
After 40 years of hard-rock superstardom, there aren't many things AC/DC has yet to try.More.
Headlining the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, as the veteran Australian band will do when the annual blowout kicks off Friday in Indio, is one of them.
But if Brian Johnson was nervous about performing at a festival known for its adventurous talent and youthful crowd, the 67-year-old singer didn't show it this week at the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills — perhaps because he'd just received some reassuring words from Paul McCartney, who played Coachella in 2009.
"I ran into him downstairs this morning," Johnson said Tuesday over tea with his band mates Angus Young and Cliff Williams. "He goes, 'Brian, you get on that stage and I'm telling you, you see all these kids looking for the hip-hop acts. Then they see you, and they're like, 'Who's he? Oh, yeah — me dad talks of him.' " Johnson laughed in his raspy growl. "But he said it's great because you're doing your thing, and eventually all the kids go, 'He's cool, this dude!'
"It kind of takes you right back to the start, when you had to win over an audience," the singer added. "I'm excited."
As it happens, the crowd won't be the only X factor for AC/DC at Coachella, which after its run this weekend at the Empire Polo Club is set to repeat April 17-19. The band's Friday night set — the opening date of a world tour scheduled through fall — will also feature two additions to the band in guitarist Stevie Young (Angus' nephew) and drummer Chris Slade.
Or new-ish additions, let's call them. Both men have played in AC/DC before, Young in the late '80s and Slade in the early '90s. But now both appear to have permanent gigs following a tumultuous 2014 in which founding guitarist Malcolm Young, Angus' older brother, was forced to leave the group as a result of dementia and longtime drummer Phil Rudd lost his spot after he was arrested in New Zealand on charges of drug possession and threatening to kill. (An additional murder-for-hire charge was dropped due to insufficient evidence.)
The dramatic events — which came just as AC/DC was preparing to release its latest album, November's typically solid "Rock or Bust" — rattled the band, said Angus Young, who called the experience a "roller coaster."
Yet AC/DC has weathered turmoil before, most famously when its original lead singer, Bon Scott, died of alcohol poisoning in 1980. Months later, the group recruited Johnson and put out "Back in Black," still its biggest album ever. Moving past these latest troubles was never in question, Johnson said.
"You pick yourself up, dust yourself down and just keep going," said the frontman, instantly recognizable in his trademark black T-shirt and flat cap. "You live on, and you have a wonderful memory of them always with you, but you're not going to stop doing what you do. Otherwise, you die inside, you know? And we would die — I would, if I didn't do what I was doing. There'd be nothing." He paused as though suddenly aware of how serious he sounded. Then he laughed.
"I'd just be another guy looking for a hobby."
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