Let There Be Rock: The Story Of AC/DC
by Susan Masino

Nothing you don’t already know

Susan Masino is a self-professed AC/DC fanatic. First seeing/ meeting/interviewing them in 1977, she’s followed their career ever since. Unfortunately, this fandom leads her to write like a 15-year-old school girl, rather than a journalist of some 29 years’ experience. The text is littered with childish asides, (‘Ouch! Somebody sounds jealous’), and nonsensical ramblings (‘the sheer energy coming off the stage could have been cut with a knife’), and it’s infuriatingly repetitive. How many plays on the words ‘highway’ and ‘hell’ does one need on a page?

The research is shoddy and the descriptions inadequate. Surely any gig is so much more than ‘sadly marred’ when one fan gets shot dead and nine people are stabbed?

Masino’s main failing, though, is that she doesn’t share any anecdotes. It’s no use telling us that Bon Scott and Cheap Trick bassist Tom Petersson partied together, without any details at all. Or that an interview tape from 1977 is really amusing, without quoting a single word. Masino comes across as a rockstar-buddy fantasist whose ‘I had more fun with them than I could ever possibly put into words’ attitude is simply not good enough for a biographer.

1 stars

ISBN 0825634695

Reviewed by Suzy West
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