10 More Huge Songs That Bands Refused To Play Live
6. It’s A Long Way To The Top (If You Wanna Rock And Roll) - AC/DC
When one thinks of rock ‘n’ roll instruments, the mind immediately goes to the electric guitar or the bass guitar or the humble drum kit. It does not think of bagpipes.
AC/DC decided to pay homage to the Young brothers’ Scottish heritage on their 1975 song It’s a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock and Roll), especially after discovering that singer Bon Scott had once been in a pipe band. The end result was a fantastic song, but also a massive pain in the backside for any future live shows.
Bagpipes are not easy to tune and it’s not easy for other instruments to be tuned to them. This made the song almost impossible to play live and, one night, a bunch of rowdy fans once got a hold of Scott’s pipes and destroyed them.
That was the final straw.
It wasn’t this instrument that doomed this song though. Since It’s a Long Way… was seen as Scott’s signature song, it was retired following his untimely death in 1980. It hasn’t been played live since a Hammersmith Odeon concert in December 1979, just two months prior to Scott’s tragic passing.