Blowing Up A Storm

When the band regrouped in Australia towards the middle of 1987, Angus and Malcolm had a pile of riffs for the next album. They found a rusty studio in southern France and started recording in August with Harry Vanda and George Young producing again. They ended up with no less than 19 songs. In the beginning of 1988, the band released their first single from their new album, “Heatseeker”, which quickly rose to number 12 in the charts. The new album, titled “Blow Up Your Video”, was released within a month and reached number 2 in the UK charts, the best position since “Back In Black”.

AC/DC started their tour in Australia, where they hadn’t played since 1981. Their first show was in Perth, where Bon’s parents showed up. They did a couple of dates in UK and then headed for the US. But this was to be the most unusual North American tour for AC/DC, since Malcolm decided not to play on this part of the tour. At first it was said that the cause was severe exhaustion, but later Angus revealed that Malcolm needed to take some time off and try to recover from his serious drinking problem. Replacing Mal on the tour was Angus and Malcolm’s nephew Stevie Young, who played for a Birmingham band called The Starfighters.

“Blow Up Your Video” proved to be the band’s best selling album in the US since “For Those About To Rock”. And when American troops used AC/DC music to try and flush Panamanian dictator General Noriega out, AC/DC almost became overnight heroes and patriots. The tour finally concluded in the end of 1988 and Angus headed over to London to work on some new music for the next album, while the rest of the band took a break from the touring.

For Simon, who had moved out to California by now, this temporary separation from the band was about to become permanent.

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