Latest news with #BrixtonAcademy
Time Out
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Time Out
Brixton Calling
These days, Brixton Academy is an essential part of London's cultural landscape. But there was a time when it was just a derelict old cinema building. In Alex Urwin's play, inspired by the memoir Live at Brixton Academy by Simon Parkes, we watch as the space transforms into something sacred. This is Parkes's story: a thalidomide baby who bought the cinema for just £1 at the age of 23. It begins during his teenage years at Gordonstoun School in Scotland, where Parkes studied alongside Prince Andrew (he sweats 'like you wouldn't believe,' by the way). At first it seems like your standard coming-of-age tale. He bunks off regularly and takes the train to London, desperate to experience the grit and glamour of London's rock'n'roll underbelly. It's a world far removed from the polished corridors of his elite boarding school. But right from the start, it feels like this is where Parkes needs to be. A love of music is woven deep into his bones, and when he discovers the soon-to-be Academy, it's love at first sight. Over the next few years, Parkes and his eclectic team of locals build up the music venue from scratch. Soon, it's the go-to place to play for icons, including The Clash, Blondie, The Smiths and The Pogues. Directed by Bronagh Lagan, the experience is akin to watching a gig. With cables curling around the stage's exterior, graffiti decorating the walls, and a tapestry of old flyers lining the floor, the room buzzes with raw energy. Smoke fills the theatre, and the music, when it comes, beats through your chest just like you're standing among a crowd. Playing Parkes, Max Runham has the air of a frontman: he cheekily winks at the audience, dancing between narration and performance with effortless swagger. By his side is the brilliant Tendai Sitima, who takes on a range of supporting roles — most crucially, Parkes' trusted number two, Johnny Lawes. Together, they both show and tell us how the Academy's identity evolved over the years. Set against a backdrop of shifting politics and social change, it feels like a space born of, and for, its time. It becomes a home for progressive thinkers: anti-apartheid campaigners pass through the doors to have their say, Arthur Scargill makes speeches during the miners' strikes and drag performers dance the night away. Still, fitting years of history into 100 minutes is a tall order, and many of the major moments feel rushed. A love story with his eventual wife, Pippa, is hurried through, while Parkes himself is painted as almost saint-like: his imperfections are glossed over, and his decisions are never doubted. Exploring his flaws more would have added nuance and depth to the account. Brixton Calling is a powerful reminder of how places and people shape culture. And for many in the audience, the play is a joyful nod to years gone by: I see a group of men in band t-shirts with tears in their eyes. The venue's legacy is palpable and there's a beating heart of community that continues to echo long after the last encore.
Spectator
19-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Spectator
Now it's getting late: on Neil Young, ageing and fatherhood
Neil Young once saved my life. Or at least, that's how I remember it. This was at an outdoor show in Finsbury Park in July 1993. I had pushed and squeezed my way almost to the front of a large crowd shortly after being passed something of dubious provenance to smoke. One moment everything was perfect: he was playing that romantic late career hit, 'Harvest Moon', the sun was setting, the moon, conveniently, rising, and I was swaying along, rapturous. But then, suddenly – bang… I fainted. This is the only time in my 45-year gig-going career that this has happened. But I was gone. I was briefly unconscious, then I came to lying on my back on the grass, looking up at dozens of legs all around and above me, almost on top of me. I realised that I needed to get up but I was still woozy, too weak to stand. I needed to gather my strength. Meanwhile Young was getting to the end: 'But now it's getting late… And the moon is climbing high.' I could no longer see the moon, just those legs. Then 'Harvest Moon' ended and applause and cheers came over my head, but I still couldn't stand. And this is when Neil Young saved my life, which felt at this moment as if it was in the balance. He did this by playing a ballad, 'The Needle and the Damage Done' (which is, perhaps appropriately, about the dangers of drug misuse). Because of this slow number I was able to spend another two minutes with my head between my knees steeling myself to get up. Had he played a rockier number – and 'Powderfinger', 'Down by the River', 'Like a Hurricane' and 'Rockin' in the Free World' were all on the set list that night – the space would have become a mosh pit and I would have been trampled. But 'The Needle' saved me. As it ended I finally managed to stand and then retreated to where it was less jammed to watch the rest of the show, shaken by how imperilled I had felt. And I realised that that song selection had been crucial in me getting out uninjured. I've seen Neil Young play a few more times in the years since – most memorably in an explosive performance at Brixton Academy in 2002, one of the best live shows I've ever been to. Alexis Petridis's review of that night in the Guardian concluded: 'Like one of his own guitar solos, you suspect [Neil Young] could go on forever.' And he pretty much has. But when I saw he was playing again this summer in Hyde Park in London, exactly 32 years to the day of that collapse in Finsbury Park, I initially had no urge to go. He'll turn 80 this autumn – and after seeing now voiceless Bob Dylan disappoint too many times, I felt Young would probably be going the same way. But then Number One Son started badgering me to take him. He's recently converted from being almost exclusively into hardcore US rap to preferring the rock bands of the early 1970s: Led Zep, the Stones and now also, it seems, Neil Young. So it felt like an open goal opportunity for some parent/child bonding. Arriving in Hyde Park, I realise I am at the younger end of the age spectrum in the audience, a rarity these days. We miss the first support act, Van Morrison, because he finishes half an hour earlier than he was listed to. It seems Young has made a late alteration to the timings to give himself longer on stage. We do see Cat Stevens and get to hug each other as he plays 'Father and Son' – a touching moment, even if the song is about parent-child estrangement. Before the main event, son goes for drinks and comes back ambitiously holding four pints. One minute you're feeding crying babies in the middle of the night, the next they're getting the beers in, I reflect. In Neil Young terminology, it seems like only yesterday that I was '24 and there's so much more' – Number One Son's age next birthday – and now I'm the old man being urged to look at the young man who is 'a lot like you were'. And indeed my son, I see, is a lot like I was. He is soon urging me to go further into the crowd. And we do this, with our four pints, only this time he does the pushing and apologising and I simply follow. I find myself thinking again of that night in 1993 when I came close to getting crushed and of other misadventures in my twenties that might have stopped me making it to my fifties. A number of my friends from those days didn't make it. Young opens his set with 'Ambulance Blues', which notes: 'It's easy to get buried in the past.' And he's right. So I try to stop brooding and to concentrate on enjoying the evening – to be in the moment, as they say these days. Once again he plays both 'Harvest Moon' – son's favourite – and 'The Needle and the Damage Done'. This time I manage to stay vertical. It's a wonderful night. The heatwave makes the air shimmer and Young can still sing that haunting high tenor, even if he is a curmudgeon who looks like a tramp. But, in fairness, so, increasingly, am I. Young also plays 'Hey Hey, My My', the companion piece to his punk era song that states: 'It's better to burn out than to fade away.' I wonder if he still thinks that? A couple of years after my 1990s white-out I attended another outdoor gig, in this same spot in Hyde Park – the Who, Eric Clapton and Bob Dylan – and wrote about it for a Sunday red-top. I recall writing the extremely snarky intro: 'Hyde Park became Jurassic Park last night as the dinosaurs of rock turned out to play.' Those dinosaurs would have been considerably younger then than I am now, I realise. One of these days Neil Young will die. I'm hoping he predeceases me – and I'm hoping I predecease my son. Who knows what will happen to any of us. But it was briefly pleasing for all three of us to be in the same field for one evening in the summer of 2025.
Sydney Morning Herald
10-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
Wet Leg began as an in-joke. Going viral taught them a lesson
On a breezy May night in London, 5000 people are crammed shoulder-to-shoulder on the famous sloped floor of Brixton Academy. Artificial fog wafts onto the stage and a flood of bright orange lights jolt to life, casting Rhian Teasdale, frontperson and guitarist of the rock band Wet Leg, into silhouette. She stalks towards the microphone, fists raised, as if balancing an invisible barbell above her head, or about to claim a wrestling belt. Her bandmates – Hester Chambers on guitar, drummer Henry Holmes, Joshua Mobaraki on synth and guitars and bassist Ellis Durand – are all in white. Teasdale could just as easily be leading an army or a cult. It's the band's first London show after a debut outing that kicked off in 2021 and sounds like a relic from a time in music history: a song, written on a lark, based on an in-joke, struck such a nerve that it spawned a record deal, a follow-up single that went just as viral, a global tour supporting Harry Styles and spots on every festival that matters. There was the full-length record and then multiple Grammy awards in 2023. Where most artists might feel the pressure to do it all over again, Wet Leg have been figuring out how to do it differently. Their green-ness at the beginning made them agreeable and malleable, Teasdale says the following day over coffee in a Brixton cafe. She's hurried to meet me and Mobaraki after a nail appointment and before a soundcheck – there's another show at the venue tonight to prepare for. 'The last album … [we were] just being a bit naive, letting people project their own ideas of what it is to be Wet Leg, what it is to be, like, this off-kilter kind of cottagecore duo.' That duo was, for many years, Teasdale and Chambers. College friends who met on the sleepy Isle of Wight, a place that I know little of besides lyrics from When I'm Sixty-Four and Teasdale's recollection of wanting so badly to leave and move to London, where she now lives with her partner. The offbeat, post-punk style of their music and unserious, eye-rolling lyrics came as a shock to listeners, who hung on their every whispered word. Its popularity was just as shocking to the band members themselves, who never thought anyone would be listening. ' Wet Dream and Chaise Longue – they were stupid songs that we started writing in mine and Hester's flat,' Mobaraki says. Mobaraki, Chambers' long-term partner, witnessed the band's origins when Teasdale was back on the Isle of Wight, crashing on their couch for a weeks-long stretch. 'We were having such a good time making ourselves laugh. It just sort of happened. 'Maybe this is quite a romantic way to think about it, but what's special about Hester and Rhian is that those things they find funny or special happen to resonate with lots of people,' he says, grinning in disbelief at where he and his friends have found themselves. 'It's so cool. I still can't believe it.' Lots of people connecting and paying attention can be a blessing and a curse, though. Chambers soldiered through her social anxiety to promote their first record and tours but has made the call not to do the same this time around. Her speaking voice in interviews is tiny and nervous – a contrast to the strength she unleashes on her guitar – and on stage she'll often turn her back to the audience. In photoshoots, she's become a pro at hiding behind props and her long hair. In shared interviews, she and Teasdale often held eye contact with one another as if a silent, encouraging telekinetic thread was running between them. They were branded as waifish little oddballs, rather than friends keeping each other as solid as possible. Being sweetly dressed, softly spoken young women and entirely new to the industry meant being misrepresented, and they often paid an emotional price. 'There have been occasions with the first album that people have kind of infantalised me and Hester, and kind of separated us from the boys,' Teasdale says. Loading It's one reason why the rules have shifted this time around, and she and her bandmates feel empowered enough to enforce them. 'We are learning to say no to things, and we can say no to things. 'If there's a weird comment on the internet – whilst I'm not trying to give these often quite mad people the time of day, sometimes I think it is important to call it out because … I think for us, having an online presence just happened so quickly and so it's not really something that we really thought about happening when we started the band and being that available for people to cast their opinions and desires upon us.' Give people an inch and they'll take a mile. Or, to be more specific: give men online a new band fronted by pretty young women to bear witness to, and they'll stake a claim and make those women responsible for their slobbering impulses. One of their breakout singles might've been called Wet Dream, but the sing-song delivery of the incendiary line 'What makes you think you're good enough to think about me when you're touching yourself?' was a piercing safety pin deflating any masturbatory fantasies. Nevertheless, they persist. 'It happened the other day: some dude had commented on one of our videos, 'A lot of boys have become men today'.' I'm like, that's so f---ing gross. That's so f---ing weird,' Teasdale says. Sitting in her kitchen chatting to me over Zoom on what promises to be a sweltering London morning a few weeks after the Brixton shows, wearing a white tank top similar to the ones she's worn in Moisturizer 's press photos, album cover and videos, Teasdale mimes a shiver down her spine. 'It was such a strange time and we were just trying to make sense of it all, to work out what our boundaries are.' Rhian Teasdale 'Most of the time I do just ignore it 'cause I don't want to give it any more energy, because it really doesn't warrant that. But I actually commented back and I said, 'Ew, creepy'. And then I checked back and the guy deleted his post entirely. I think people just think that … we are complacent and we're not going to say anything.' Saying yes, nodding along, smiling through the discomfort taught Teasdale that no one wins when she doesn't listen to her gut. So she's turned the volume up on it now, palatability be damned. The cover of Moisturizer shows her crouched on the carpet of a drab suburban bedroom, grinning menacingly. She and Chambers have long, sharp talons that are more pre-historic than glamorous. It's peculiar and leaves an uneasy taste in your mouth. That's entirely the point. 'The more people you get involved, the more diluted the vision becomes, and the more weird iterations you get of what it is that you're setting out to do. It's just been really empowering, being able to have that much autonomy over [our] image. And to build a world around the music and be a bit fake or a bit subversive with it.' Despite occasionally dipping their toes in the discourse and reacting to what they witness there, Wet Leg are by and large revelling in more romantic impulses these days. Rhian met her partner, also a musician, around the same time the band began to gain attention. Chambers and Mobaraki are at their most content when they're at home on the Isle of Wight, going about life by each other's sides. Moisturizer is, more than anything, a totem to intimacy. On album opener CPR, Teasdale mimics a call to emergency services. The crisis? 'Well… the thing is… I… I… I… I… I… I'M IN LOVE'. There's sentimental mooning and rose-tinted dreams of romantic getaways on some tracks, and then there's Pillow Talk, a promise to make her lover sticky, hot, screaming, beg, and 'wet like an aquarium'. After they finally arrived at the end of what felt like endless touring, the band weren't reunited again until they set up a makeshift studio in the seaside town of Suffolk. The idea of hunkering down to make Moisturizer in one fell swoop – rather than tinkering away at singles in stolen moments – appealed to Teasdale. 'It was just like, 'No, I don't want to be sat in the second-album world forever, let's just get it over with'.' The risk of letting in outside pressures and voices, of agonising over whether songs would connect, if people would like them, was too great otherwise. 'We did the old-school rock'n'roll residency. Let's just go and block the world out there and be very self-indulgent about it.' What came out during that time together were songs that dream of exiling someone who's been standing in your light (Mangetout) and a love story dedicated to a person whose presence makes you believe in divine forces (Pond Song). There were songs inspired by the horror movies the band watched together each night (Jennifer's Body) and more than one reference to winding back and planting a sharp uppercut on someone. It's a record with teeth and hard edges, that snarls and snaps. But also one with a fleshy underbelly, a deep delicacy and a vulnerability we weren't permitted to see on Wet Leg's cheeky debut outing. As they ready themselves for another year in which chaos and upheaval are the new standard, I mention that it's unusual for an artist to do what Chambers has done, in excusing herself from the conversation she was a key player in a few years ago. Teasdale nods in agreement, until I suggest their entree into fame involved her looking after her bandmate. 'Hester doesn't need looking after,' she asserts. 'It was just such a strange time, and we were both just trying to make sense of it all, both trying to each work out what our boundaries are. And I think we're both very protective of each other.' 'You have to try things to know whether you get on with them,' Mobaraki says simply, of his girlfriend's move out of the spotlight. 'You have to be out of your comfort zone to know that you're out of your comfort zone. When you want to be in a band when you're young, you don't actually think about, 'Oh yeah, and how would I react to feeling observed by 5000 people while I do my thing?'' Put that way, the rock-star fantasy begins to fray a little at the seams. Teasdale insists the band is 'really happy and settled', and finds the suggestion that they are otherwise to be a distraction. 'It's really funny to see people on the internet pulling their hair out. 'Where's Hester? Where's Hester?' It's like, chill out. It's people like you that probably make her want to retreat. So grabby.'
The Age
10-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Age
Wet Leg began as an in-joke. Going viral taught them a lesson
On a breezy May night in London, 5000 people are crammed shoulder-to-shoulder on the famous sloped floor of Brixton Academy. Artificial fog wafts onto the stage and a flood of bright orange lights jolt to life, casting Rhian Teasdale, frontperson and guitarist of the rock band Wet Leg, into silhouette. She stalks towards the microphone, fists raised, as if balancing an invisible barbell above her head, or about to claim a wrestling belt. Her bandmates – Hester Chambers on guitar, drummer Henry Holmes, Joshua Mobaraki on synth and guitars and bassist Ellis Durand – are all in white. Teasdale could just as easily be leading an army or a cult. It's the band's first London show after a debut outing that kicked off in 2021 and sounds like a relic from a time in music history: a song, written on a lark, based on an in-joke, struck such a nerve that it spawned a record deal, a follow-up single that went just as viral, a global tour supporting Harry Styles and spots on every festival that matters. There was the full-length record and then multiple Grammy awards in 2023. Where most artists might feel the pressure to do it all over again, Wet Leg have been figuring out how to do it differently. Their green-ness at the beginning made them agreeable and malleable, Teasdale says the following day over coffee in a Brixton cafe. She's hurried to meet me and Mobaraki after a nail appointment and before a soundcheck – there's another show at the venue tonight to prepare for. 'The last album … [we were] just being a bit naive, letting people project their own ideas of what it is to be Wet Leg, what it is to be, like, this off-kilter kind of cottagecore duo.' That duo was, for many years, Teasdale and Chambers. College friends who met on the sleepy Isle of Wight, a place that I know little of besides lyrics from When I'm Sixty-Four and Teasdale's recollection of wanting so badly to leave and move to London, where she now lives with her partner. The offbeat, post-punk style of their music and unserious, eye-rolling lyrics came as a shock to listeners, who hung on their every whispered word. Its popularity was just as shocking to the band members themselves, who never thought anyone would be listening. ' Wet Dream and Chaise Longue – they were stupid songs that we started writing in mine and Hester's flat,' Mobaraki says. Mobaraki, Chambers' long-term partner, witnessed the band's origins when Teasdale was back on the Isle of Wight, crashing on their couch for a weeks-long stretch. 'We were having such a good time making ourselves laugh. It just sort of happened. 'Maybe this is quite a romantic way to think about it, but what's special about Hester and Rhian is that those things they find funny or special happen to resonate with lots of people,' he says, grinning in disbelief at where he and his friends have found themselves. 'It's so cool. I still can't believe it.' Lots of people connecting and paying attention can be a blessing and a curse, though. Chambers soldiered through her social anxiety to promote their first record and tours but has made the call not to do the same this time around. Her speaking voice in interviews is tiny and nervous – a contrast to the strength she unleashes on her guitar – and on stage she'll often turn her back to the audience. In photoshoots, she's become a pro at hiding behind props and her long hair. In shared interviews, she and Teasdale often held eye contact with one another as if a silent, encouraging telekinetic thread was running between them. They were branded as waifish little oddballs, rather than friends keeping each other as solid as possible. Being sweetly dressed, softly spoken young women and entirely new to the industry meant being misrepresented, and they often paid an emotional price. 'There have been occasions with the first album that people have kind of infantalised me and Hester, and kind of separated us from the boys,' Teasdale says. Loading It's one reason why the rules have shifted this time around, and she and her bandmates feel empowered enough to enforce them. 'We are learning to say no to things, and we can say no to things. 'If there's a weird comment on the internet – whilst I'm not trying to give these often quite mad people the time of day, sometimes I think it is important to call it out because … I think for us, having an online presence just happened so quickly and so it's not really something that we really thought about happening when we started the band and being that available for people to cast their opinions and desires upon us.' Give people an inch and they'll take a mile. Or, to be more specific: give men online a new band fronted by pretty young women to bear witness to, and they'll stake a claim and make those women responsible for their slobbering impulses. One of their breakout singles might've been called Wet Dream, but the sing-song delivery of the incendiary line 'What makes you think you're good enough to think about me when you're touching yourself?' was a piercing safety pin deflating any masturbatory fantasies. Nevertheless, they persist. 'It happened the other day: some dude had commented on one of our videos, 'A lot of boys have become men today'.' I'm like, that's so f---ing gross. That's so f---ing weird,' Teasdale says. Sitting in her kitchen chatting to me over Zoom on what promises to be a sweltering London morning a few weeks after the Brixton shows, wearing a white tank top similar to the ones she's worn in Moisturizer 's press photos, album cover and videos, Teasdale mimes a shiver down her spine. 'It was such a strange time and we were just trying to make sense of it all, to work out what our boundaries are.' Rhian Teasdale 'Most of the time I do just ignore it 'cause I don't want to give it any more energy, because it really doesn't warrant that. But I actually commented back and I said, 'Ew, creepy'. And then I checked back and the guy deleted his post entirely. I think people just think that … we are complacent and we're not going to say anything.' Saying yes, nodding along, smiling through the discomfort taught Teasdale that no one wins when she doesn't listen to her gut. So she's turned the volume up on it now, palatability be damned. The cover of Moisturizer shows her crouched on the carpet of a drab suburban bedroom, grinning menacingly. She and Chambers have long, sharp talons that are more pre-historic than glamorous. It's peculiar and leaves an uneasy taste in your mouth. That's entirely the point. 'The more people you get involved, the more diluted the vision becomes, and the more weird iterations you get of what it is that you're setting out to do. It's just been really empowering, being able to have that much autonomy over [our] image. And to build a world around the music and be a bit fake or a bit subversive with it.' Despite occasionally dipping their toes in the discourse and reacting to what they witness there, Wet Leg are by and large revelling in more romantic impulses these days. Rhian met her partner, also a musician, around the same time the band began to gain attention. Chambers and Mobaraki are at their most content when they're at home on the Isle of Wight, going about life by each other's sides. Moisturizer is, more than anything, a totem to intimacy. On album opener CPR, Teasdale mimics a call to emergency services. The crisis? 'Well… the thing is… I… I… I… I… I… I'M IN LOVE'. There's sentimental mooning and rose-tinted dreams of romantic getaways on some tracks, and then there's Pillow Talk, a promise to make her lover sticky, hot, screaming, beg, and 'wet like an aquarium'. After they finally arrived at the end of what felt like endless touring, the band weren't reunited again until they set up a makeshift studio in the seaside town of Suffolk. The idea of hunkering down to make Moisturizer in one fell swoop – rather than tinkering away at singles in stolen moments – appealed to Teasdale. 'It was just like, 'No, I don't want to be sat in the second-album world forever, let's just get it over with'.' The risk of letting in outside pressures and voices, of agonising over whether songs would connect, if people would like them, was too great otherwise. 'We did the old-school rock'n'roll residency. Let's just go and block the world out there and be very self-indulgent about it.' What came out during that time together were songs that dream of exiling someone who's been standing in your light (Mangetout) and a love story dedicated to a person whose presence makes you believe in divine forces (Pond Song). There were songs inspired by the horror movies the band watched together each night (Jennifer's Body) and more than one reference to winding back and planting a sharp uppercut on someone. It's a record with teeth and hard edges, that snarls and snaps. But also one with a fleshy underbelly, a deep delicacy and a vulnerability we weren't permitted to see on Wet Leg's cheeky debut outing. As they ready themselves for another year in which chaos and upheaval are the new standard, I mention that it's unusual for an artist to do what Chambers has done, in excusing herself from the conversation she was a key player in a few years ago. Teasdale nods in agreement, until I suggest their entree into fame involved her looking after her bandmate. 'Hester doesn't need looking after,' she asserts. 'It was just such a strange time, and we were both just trying to make sense of it all, both trying to each work out what our boundaries are. And I think we're both very protective of each other.' 'You have to try things to know whether you get on with them,' Mobaraki says simply, of his girlfriend's move out of the spotlight. 'You have to be out of your comfort zone to know that you're out of your comfort zone. When you want to be in a band when you're young, you don't actually think about, 'Oh yeah, and how would I react to feeling observed by 5000 people while I do my thing?'' Put that way, the rock-star fantasy begins to fray a little at the seams. Teasdale insists the band is 'really happy and settled', and finds the suggestion that they are otherwise to be a distraction. 'It's really funny to see people on the internet pulling their hair out. 'Where's Hester? Where's Hester?' It's like, chill out. It's people like you that probably make her want to retreat. So grabby.'
Forbes
30-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
AC/DC Bookends A Billboard Chart With Multiple Bestsellers In America
AC/DC bookends Billboard's Hard Rock Digital Song Sales chart as 'Thunderstruck' returns to No. 1 ... More and 'Back in Black' reenters at No. 10. AC/DC, Thundersteruck video, Brixton Academy 8/17/90 (Photo by) AC/DC is always a major player on Billboard's hard rock charts. The band rarely scores new wins, either with albums or songs, so it is with the classics that the Australian rock outfit maintains a constant presence. Sometimes that comes in the form of just one tune, while in other instances, multiple tracks and even an album or two can find space on the weekly rankings. This time around, AC/DC scores a pair of hit songs, and the group even manages a relatively uncommon feat. AC/DC Sits at Nos. 1 and 10 The band bookends the Hard Rock Digital Song Sales chart this frame. AC/DC sits in first place, at No. 1, and also in the lowest rung at No. 10, as the tally only features 10 spaces these days. "Thunderstruck" rises from No. 3 back to the throne. The smash earns its sixty-first stay at No. 1 as it surges. At the same time, "Back in Black" returns to the Hard Rock Digital Song Sales chart. This week, it comes in at No. 10, reentering the list in the lowest spot possible. "Thunderstruck" and "Back in Black" Keep Selling "Thunderstruck" and "Back in Black" have both already taken a turn at No. 1. While "Thunderstruck" is far and away the group's longest-running leader and the current champion, "Back in Black" has spent just two of its 547 stays on the tally in the spotlight. Another pair of tunes, "Shot in the Dark" and "Play Ball," have also reached the peak position, though neither manages to appear nearly as frequently as "Thunderstruck" or "Back in Black." AC/DC and Disturbed Stand Alone AC/DC is one of only two musical acts that fill more than one spot on the Hard Rock Digital Song Sales chart this week. Disturbed also manages to do so, as its cover of Simon & Garfunkel's "The Sound of Silence" comes in right behind "Thunderstruck," while "Don't Tell Me," a collaboration with Heart frontwoman Ann Wilson, reenters at No. 5.
