AC/DC: "Live At River Plate" DVD

Label: Columbia 2011

Review by Alan Holloway

When you’ve been kicking around for as long as AC/DC you tend to build up quite a catalogue of live albums, videos and DVDs, each one proclaiming to be the ‘ultimate’ experience. Rather than ‘ultimate’, “Live At River Plate” goes for ‘definitive’, and for a change there’s a very real chance that the back cover boasting may contain more than a few grains of truth.

Filmed in Buenos Aires in front of a sold out, madly enthusiastic crowd, it’s nice to watch a DVD that doesn’t put a single foot wrong. The concert itself is 140 minutes of sweat soaked genius, perfectly mixed and filmed by no less than 32 cameras in shiny high definition. Split screen techniques are used very effectively, allowing the viewer to see the band and the rapturous crowd response, although they are not overused. The stage set is the full monty, including the train crashing through the back and an massive inflatable Rosie riding it like the brazen hussy she is. The best set design since Maiden’s “Powerslave” tour, it makes for a great DVD. The songs are a good mix of old and new, including the classic “Shot Down In Flames”, along with “The Jack” and “TNT” amongst the usual greatest hits stuff. There’s a few off the phenomenally successful “Black Ice” album, and they fit in pretty well. Although “Rock n Roll Train” takes the honours as the best one, as well as opening the set.

For me, the definitive AC/DC concert recording and video will always be “Let There Be Rock”, but as far as the post Bon Scott era goes, “Live At River Plate” gives you everything you could possibly ask for from a live AC/DC DVD in the 21st Century. The true test of any live DVD is that you wish you were there, and the best thing about this one is that it’s as if you really are.

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