If You Want Blood You've Got It

Background

The album was released a mere six months after the band's previous studio album Powerage. Originally, a greatest hits package had been in the works called 12 of the Best but the project was scrapped in favor of a live album. It was recorded during the 1978 Powerage tour and contains songs from T.N.T., Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap, Let There Be Rock, and Powerage. It is the last Bon Scott-era AC/DC album produced by Harry Vanda and George Young, who also produced the band's first five studio releases. In his 1994 Bon Scott memoir Highway to Hell, author Clinton Walker observes, "Live albums, which tended to be double or triple sets in which songs short in their studio versions were stretched out into extended tedium, were for some reason popular in the seventies. If You Want Blood reversed this tradition...it boasted a blunt ten tracks and, allowing nothing extraneous, got straight to the point, that being raging AC/DC rock and roll."

AC/DC's concert at the Apollo Theatre in Glasgow, Scotland on 30 April 1978 was used for the live tracks (it has never been confirmed if any other concert tracks from this tour are used also) that appeared on the album, as it can be clearly heard during "The Jack" Scott exclaiming "Any virgins in Glasgow?" as proof of some songs concert location. This concert will also be remembered for the encore when AC/DC came back on stage dressed in the Scottish Football strip, paying homage to Scott's and the Young brothers' homeland. A song with the same title of "If You Want Blood (You've Got It)" appeared on the next album, and the bands US album charts breakthrough, Highway to Hell. It was featured in the 2011 horror film Final Destination, the third time they had tracks as part of a motion picture soundtrack; Stephen King's motion picture adaptation Maximum Overdrive official soundtrack Who Made Who and the soundtrack album Iron Man 2 for the movie of the same name.

The songs "Dog Eat Dog" and the encore "Rocker/Fling Thing" (followed with a reprise of "Rocker") performed on the night were eventually removed from the album release, as the version of "Rocker" that is on the originally released album is missing more than 3 minutes of guitar solo by Angus, which the footage of the song from the concert shows, as he does his now notable walk around the audience (with an early version of a wireless guitar lead). This part of the band's future concert theatrics would be replaced with the 1977 album title track "Let There Be Rock", as they haven't played the song "Rocker" more than a few times since the passing of Bon Scott two years latter in 1980. The live rendition of "Dog Eat Dog" from the concert was initially released as the B-side of the single Whole Lotta Rosie in November 1978, later that same year but only in Australia. It was later re-released worldwide in 2009 on the two (standard) & three (collectors) CD boxed set compilation Backtracks, featuring the Australian album only songs not released internationally at the time and the live B-Sides from their 7" & 12" singles over the years that are not easily found any more. The encore songs "Fling Thing" and "Rocker" (with its complete guitar solo) have appeared only on video footage of the concert by a Dutch TV station played at the time.

According to the 2006 book AC/DC: Maximum Rock & Roll, the album title was an extension of Bon's response to a journalist at the Day on the Green festival in July 1978 who asked what they could expect from the band and Scott replied, "Blood." The cover art is from a shoot done with Atlantic Records' staff photographer Jim Houghton before a show at Boston's Paradise Theater, the idea for which came from Atlantic's art director, Bob Defrin.

Reception

In a 1992 interview with Metal Hammer at the time of the band's second live release, Malcolm Young admitted, "I personally still prefer the old album. We were young, fresh, vital and kicking ass." Greg Prato of AllMusic notes, "While most other rock bands of the era were busy experimenting with disco or creating studio-perfected epics, AC/DC was one of the few specializing in raw and bluesy hard rock, as evidenced by 1978's live set, If You Want Blood You've Got It." Eduardo Rivadavia of Ultimate Classic Rock enthuses, "Other concert records may boast more songs, more Top 40 hits or even more crowd-pleasing gimmicks. But very few can challenge the sheer excitement and reckless abandon captured on AC/DC’s terrific concert document." The album was listed at #2 on Classic Rock magazine's readers' poll of "50 Greatest Live Albums Ever".

Concert footage

The entire Glasgow concert was filmed but the complete footage has never been released. Eventually, "Riff Raff" and "Fling Thing/Rocker" segments were made available on the AC/DC Family Jewels DVD. Footage was also used on the "Rock 'n' Roll Damnation" promotional clip also available in Family Jewels. Segments from the concert (the songs "Rock 'n' Roll Damnation", "Dog Eat Dog" and "Let There Be Rock") were made available on the DVD Plug Me In, released in 2007. The segment "Bad Boy Boogie" was included on the bonus disc on the three-disc edition of the DVD.

Track listing of the 1978 Album

All tracks written by Angus Young, Malcolm Young and Bon Scott.

Complete Concert from the Apollo Theatre, Glasgow 30 April 1978

All songs written by Young/Young/Scott except 'Fling Thing (Scottish trad.)

Personnel

Production