AC/DC Plays a Short Gig at CBGB in 1977: Hear Metal Being Played on Punk’s Hallowed Grounds

Punk rock and heavy met­al were two gen­res that evolved over the ‘70s, but seemed to run par­al­lel to each oth­er, despite shar­ing com­mon fash­ion, sounds, and atti­tudes. But then there are moments in his­to­ry, where every­body plays togeth­er in the same sand­box. For exam­ple, the above remas­tered audio, which cap­tures the Aus­tralian band AC/DC on their first Amer­i­can tour, play­ing New York’s CBGB, syn­ony­mous now with punk and new wave music.

The date is August 24, 1977, and AC/DC were on a cross-coun­try trip that had tak­en in both club dates and are­nas, where they supported—yes, hard to believe, I know—REO Speed­wag­on. Their album Let There Be Rock had just dropped in June. The band would be in the States until the win­ter.

This CBGB gig finds them on the same bill as Talk­ing Heads and the Dead Boys, accord­ing to a poster from the time. And while there’s no video for this show, you can find a few pho­tos that doc­u­ment the con­cert here. You can feel the mug­gy New York sum­mer in these pho­tos, but also the excite­ment of an unfor­get­table gig.

At 15 min­utes, the set is short, but still three min­utes longer than the Ramones’ first set at the same club three years ear­li­er. That’s pret­ty met­al, man.

Note: An ear­li­er ver­sion of this post appeared on our site in 2016.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

NYC’s Icon­ic Punk Club CBG­Bs Comes Alive in a Bril­liant Short Ani­ma­tion, Using David Godlis’ Pho­tos of Pat­ti Smith, The Ramones & More

CBGB’s Hey­day: Watch The Ramones, The Dead Boys, Bad Brains, Talk­ing Heads & Blondie Per­form Live (1974–1982)

Lis­ten to Pat­ti Smith’s Glo­ri­ous Three Hour Farewell to CBGB’s on Its Final Night

The Talk­ing Heads Play CBGB, the New York Club That Shaped Their Sound (1975)

Watch an Episode of TV-CBGB, the First Rock ‘n’ Roll Sit­com Ever Aired on Cable TV (1981)

Ted Mills is a free­lance writer on the arts.