AC/DC fans do not go gentle into that good night

Last Saturday night, 82,000 fans of all ages rocked at Croke Park in Dublin with the fabled band

Portraits of Heavy Metal fans that gathered in Dublin last weekend for the AC/DC concert at Croke Park.  Photographs: Tom Honan
Portraits of Heavy Metal fans that gathered in Dublin last weekend for the AC/DC concert at Croke Park. Photographs: Tom Honan

The Young brothers, Malcolm and Angus, named their band AC/DC after seeing the symbol on their sister Margaret’s sewing machine back in the early 1970s.

It was a genius name for a hard rock band that would go on to conquer the world, augmented by a brilliant logo design by Los Angeles-born graphic designer Gerard Huerta.

Huerta used the upper case characters of the Guttenberg Bible and incorporated the lightning bolt into the logo.

It has since become the most popular logo in rock’n’roll history. More T-shirts, baseball caps, baby clothes, keyrings, patches and tattoos have been produced with that logo than for any other band in history, according to online music merchandise retailer Rush Order Tees.

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Dan Stewart from Belfast at Croke Park recently for AC/DC.
Photo: Tom Honan for The Irish Times.
Dan Stewart from Belfast at Croke Park recently for AC/DC. Photo: Tom Honan for The Irish Times.
Thersa Reilly from Kildare at Croke Park recently for AC/DC.
Photo: Tom Honan for The Irish Times
Thersa Reilly from Kildare at Croke Park recently for AC/DC. Photo: Tom Honan for The Irish Times
Lea Bell from  Derry at Croke Park recently for AC/DC.
Photo: Tom Honan for The Irish Times
Lea Bell from Derry at Croke Park recently for AC/DC. Photo: Tom Honan for The Irish Times
Philip Keegan from Clara, Co Offaly at the AC/DC gig.
Photo: Tom Honan for The Irish Times
Philip Keegan from Clara, Co Offaly at the AC/DC gig. Photo: Tom Honan for The Irish Times

You couldn’t escape AC/DC or their ubiquitous logo last Saturday night at Croke Park. Young and old (there’s no escaping the fact there were lots of ageing rockers present) wore the T-shirt in all its different guises. They also wore the glow-in-the-dark devil’s horns first popularised after the album and song Highway to Hell.

Brian Johnson and Angus Young of AC/DC perform on stage at Croke Park, Dublin, last weekend. Photograph: Tom Honan/The Irish Times
Brian Johnson and Angus Young of AC/DC perform on stage at Croke Park, Dublin, last weekend. Photograph: Tom Honan/The Irish Times

Everybody there was present not to go gently into that good night, but to rock, rock against the dying of the light.

Ronan McGreevy

Ronan McGreevy

Ronan McGreevy is a news reporter with The Irish Times