AC/DC - Bonfire

This superbly packaged 4 CD boxed set is a must-own for any serious collector of great rock music, coming as it does from one of the world's greatest rock bands. The title comes from a sort-of an in-joke with the band that Bon Scott made, saying he'd title his first solo album Bonfire if he ever made it big time. As it turns out, Bon & the band made it bigger than even he & the band probably ever thought they would.

Packaged along with a 48 age booklet with AC/DC historical notes largely penned by rock writer Murray Engleheart, the Bonfire set house 4 powerhouse albums inside, three of those featuring some pretty rare recordings of the band. The first of the 4 CDs is Live From The Atlantic Studios, where the band are found in session playing some of their most famous songs, Bon sounding in fine voice. Prominent tracks on this particular CD include opener "Live Wire" & "High Voltage", as well as the classic "Whole Lotta Rosie". Also featuring is AC/DC's infamous "The Jack", here a fantastic live rendition of the song.

CD2 is Let There Be Rock •The Movie Live In Paris, which I'm guessing was a live concert film of the band. Once again the band are in amazing form, with many of their early songs featured here such as "Hell Ain't A Bad Place To Be", "Bad Boy Boogie", "Highway To Hell", "Girls Got Rhythm", "High Voltage" & a blistering live version of the title track, which has to be one of the all-time greatest rock songs.

The third CD in this set is amusingly called Volts, a play on words that has seen the band's music dug out of the archives (hence the vaults - volts wordplay). This is probably the disc featuring the rarest material of the lot, with tracks like "Dirty Eyes" being the original version of Whole Lotta Rosie featuring the same backing riffs, just different lyrics etc... Other tracks which you may know include "Touch Too Much", this time the song bearing the same name from the Highway To Hell album with different lyrics, "Back Set Confidentil", a song which ended up as Beatin' Around The Bush & the last of these 'alternate' track versions is "Get It Hot", again the same song name as on the Highway To Hell album with different music & lyrics. Still on this disc are live versions of tracks like "TNT" & "She's Got Balls", a track taken from something called Bondi Lifesaver, which I assume is another live recording session.

Filling out the last disc position is what many have termed as AC/DC's 'comeback' album, Back In Black, which is the album that followed on after the untimely death of Bon Scott, featuring new vocalist Brian Johnson. As an aside to this, the included booklet tells the tale that Bon had seen Brian Johnson perform earlier in his career & thought that Johnson was a great singer. Strange but interesting facts for the memory bank. Back In Black of course is one of the all-time classic rock albums & one that made so many fans happy to see the band continue. This album of course features such legendary rock items as "What Do You Do For Money Honey", "Let Me Put My Love Into You" & possibly the album's best song "You Shook Me All Night Long", all situated alongside "Rock & Roll Ain't Noise Pollution".

This boxed set is a totally amazing document of the band's early history & shows them at their very best, offering some rare music, along with some live classics. It also stands as both the band's & fan's tribute to their hero, Bon Scott.

Bonfire is distributed by Albert Productions through EMI. hEARd rating 10/10