Capital offensive

AC/DC vocalist Brian Johnson performing during their Wellington concert. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Brian Johnson looks in pain standing up there on stage, all bow-legged, slightly hunched, with his face screwed up into a mash. But the man with the famously gravelly and ravaged voice can still holler.

The pain looks particularly excruciating during Back In Black - fitting, because if there's one AC/DC song that makes you feel bulletproof, then that's it.

Then again, the hardcore Acca Dacca fan might go for Let There Be Rock, Dirty Deeds, or, even early song High Voltage, all of which they play tonight.

It's Thursday at Wellington's Westpac Stadium, a sold-out 35,000 crowd, many of whom wear red devil's horns in homage to lead guitarist Angus Young, are here to see AC/DC play the first show of the Australasian leg of the Black Ice Tour.

The two hours-plus set is made up of hit after hit but the secret to its success is how it escalates, from opening track Rock 'N Roll Train, off latest album Black Ice, through to blow-up doll Rosie's appearance on Whole Lotta Rosie, to a triumphant and extended two-song encore.

On Shoot To Thrill Johnson gets a clap-along going - "I love this job," he howls - and then they crunch into new song War Machine, a stomper off Black Ice; Back In Black's You Shook Me All Night Long shows it's still a party-starter 30 years on; and TNT gets the biggest crowd sing-along.

The stage is like the two main stages at the Big Day Out in one, with towering speaker stacks and giant video screens either side, and a long catwalk extending around 70m into the crowd. It's here where Angus is let off his leash to gallop and duck walk as he cranks out Back In Black (which includes a backwards duck walk) and the fiddly and fiery first notes of 1990 hit Thunderstruck.

For The Jack the cameras beam images on to the big screens of the lovely ladies in the crowd, and some, as is tradition, opt to flash, to which Angus reciprocates with his own striptease act.

That boy, to quote Johnson, "has got the devil in his fingers and the blues in his soul".

And yes, it is loud, yet the sound is so pristine that it doesn't do nasty things to your ears. Earplugs might be a good idea for tonight, but for those about to rock, forget it.