AC/DC earns first Diamond-certified single with “Thunderstruck

AC/DC has gone Diamond.

The Aussie rockers just received their first-ever RIAA Diamond certification for their classic track “Thunderstruck,” meaning it’s now moved at least 10 million equivalent units.

According to the RIAA site, “Thunderstruck,” from the band’s 1990 album, The Razor’s Edge, was actually awarded Gold, Platinum and Diamond certifications on the same day.

And that wasn’t the only recent certification awarded to AC/DC. They earned new multi-Platinum certifications for singles “Hells Bells,” “Back in Black,” “You Shook Me All Night Long,” “Highway To Hell,” “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap,” “T.N.T.” and more.

In addition, several albums received new multi-Platinum certifications, including their classic Back in Black, which was just certified 26-times Platinum.

AC/DC is currently performing those hit singles overseas on their Power Up tour. They play Hockenheim, Germany, on July 13. A complete list of dates can be found at acdc.com.

There are no doubt songs that remind you of summer, so when summer comes around, you start playing them more. It doesn’t need to be attached to a specific moment, but summer as a whole is associated with that track, and therefore, when you hear it, you think of long days, sun cream and sweat.

We also associate other songs with more specific moments. If we keep using summer as an example, some songs might apply to the season as a whole, but then there was that one summer when you met [insert name here], and a particular song was playing when that happened. This means you associate that track with that one specific experience. The feelings surrounding that person, be they negative, positive or, as is most commonly the case, complicated, are brought back to the surface whenever that song is played.

In this instance, your parents are summer. No, your parents are summer, winter, spring and autumn. When you hear the music they like and that they tried to push onto you, regardless of how much you did or didn’t like it, it becomes a warm blanket. The first time you’re away from home, when you leave for university or relocate to another city, and, inevitably, when they pass away, that music will remind you of them and your relationship together. That will make the music either something you want to listen to, can’t listen to, or have complicated feelings surrounding it.

The crowd screams like victims of voodoo. No one is on stage yet, but the lights are down, and tension is up. Eyes fixate on the emptiness, locked in anticipation. Any breathing is done self-consciously, inadvertently, and quietly. The seats go down too far and up too high to see the end of either, so I sit there, phone pressed to my chest, making notes adrift in a sea of the obsessed. I write about everything around me; words like “atmospheric”, “cinematic”, and “anthemic” itch on the end of my thumbs, but in lieu of music, I can’t bring myself to type them. Instead, I make notes on the crowd: full, the atmosphere: palpable, and the price of drinks: too much. The dim stage lights change colour, an animation of a speeding car is shown on a screen, and the opening chords to ‘If You Want Blood (You Got It)’ fill the stadium.

Normally, at this point, it’s my job to critique, to provide you with some insight into what the gig was like, and you, as the reader who was either at the gig, is attending a different gig or wishes they were attending this one, will read and either decide on whether you share my opinion, get excited for when you see them, or imagine yourself there. This time, I can’t do that. Reviews are subjective anyway; I’ve been to gigs I’ve hated in the past that people have loved and vice versa, but the two hours AC/DC were on stage were spent so firmly locked inside my own head that to provide you insight would mean telling you everything about myself and then still trying to justify how I felt. I don’t intend to do that, firstly because I don’t want to, and secondly, because it won’t be fun for you to read (I have lived a very mundane life).

All that can be said is when that music started playing, I was no longer in Wembley. The crowd: gone. The atmosphere: non-existent. The drinks: whatever is in the fridge. My dad sat on his electric lounge chair, leg rest up, can of Fosters in the drinks holder and a bag of pork scratchings on a side table. I was sat on the sofa, constantly moving because it’s made of the worst leather, a can of coke on the side table which steadily morphed into a second Fosters as the years went on. AC/DC’s ‘Jailbreak’ plays on the TV, and he’s telling me the story about seeing the band in Sydney again; I’m zoning out, annoyed by the repetition, but safe, comfortable and happy. I don’t miss him in the moment, I’m overjoyed about the fact I knew him, and thankful to him for passing on his love of music to me.

 

The band end with ‘For Those About to Rock We Salute You’, the roar is loud and the night is over. As is always the case with Wembley, the journey home is a nightmare; the tube is rammed, and the air is heavy. No one cares, though; people are still talking about the gig, and the excitement shows no signs of dying down.

I hold my dad’s rugby shirt in my hand. It almost cramps under the stress as I worry about letting both it and this night, this moment, go. This is the closest I’ve felt to him since he passed away. We are constantly connected through music, a link that refuses