Bonfire (1997)
Disc One
1. Live Wire
2. Problem Child
3. High Voltage
4. Hell Ain't A Bad Place To Be
5. Dog Eat Dog
6. The Jack
7. Whole Lotta Rosie
8. Rocker
Disc Two
1. Live Wire
2. Shot Down in Flames
3. Hell Ain't A Bad Place To Be
4. Sin City
5. Walk All Over You
6. Bad Boy Boogie
Disc Three
1. The Jack
2. Highway to Hell
3. Girls Got Rhythm
4. High Voltage
5. Whole Lotta Rosie
6. Rocker
7. T.N.T.
8. Let There Be Rock
Disc Four
1. Dirty Eyes
2. Touch Too Much
3. If You Want Blood (You Got It)
4. Back Seat Confidential
5. Get it Hot
6. Sin City
7. She's Got Balls
8. School Days
9. It's A Long Way To the Top
(If You Wanna Rock 'N' Roll
10.Ride On
Disc Five (Back in Black album)
1. Hells Bells
2. Shoot to Thrill
3. What Do You Do For Money Honey
4. Given the Dog a Bone
5. Let Me Put My Love Into You
6. Back in Black
7. You Shook Me All Night Long
8. Have a Drink On My
9. Shake a Leg
10.Rock and Roll Ain't Noise Pollution
This boxed set marks one of the more idiosyncratic entries in the canon of career retrospectives. A collection ostensibly created to honor the memory of the late Bon Scott, Bonfire is an ambitious but occasionally muddled tribute. The packaging is lavish—arguably too lavish—and the curation, while admirable in intent, falls short of the cohesion it aspires to.
The concept was simple enough: celebrate the brief but electrifying tenure of Bon Scott as AC/DC’s frontman. The execution, however, invites some head-scratching. The fifth and final disc is Back in Black, the band’s first post-Scott record and arguably their greatest commercial success. While this album was indeed intended as a tribute to Bon, its inclusion here feels slightly disingenuous—less a memorial than a commercial backfill. It would have been more fitting, and more honest, to exclude it entirely and allow the Bon-era material to speak for itself.
Discs one through four provide a more appropriate window into Scott’s legacy. The first disc, a live set from a 1977 Atlantic Records showcase in New York, captures the band in its gritty, pre-megastardom prime. The crowd is modest, but the energy is infectious. There’s no polish here, no studio sheen—just raw, throttling rock ‘n’ roll as it was meant to be consumed: loud and unapologetic.
Discs two and three shift the scene to Paris in 1979, pulling from the Let There Be Rock concert film. The performances are tighter, the band more assured. Still, the mix is a bit rough around the edges—some sonic hiss, errant buzzing, and ambient clutter between tracks suggest a certain haste in the mastering process. The Parisian audience, for all their enthusiasm, lack the visceral engagement of earlier Scottish or Australian crowds. Nevertheless, the setlist and performance quality make these discs indispensable for anyone tracking the band’s evolution in the twilight of Scott’s career.
Disc four offers the most curious assembly: demos, alternates, and unreleased curios. While some selections offer fascinating insight into the band’s working process, others feel redundant—fragments barely distinguishable from their final versions. The band seems to strain, at times, to stretch the material across five discs. A tighter, three-disc set might have better served the spirit of the collection. Ironically, many of the rarities that should have made the cut were saved for the later Backtracks compilation, released in 2009. A more visionary approach might have combined the two into one definitive anthology, spanning both Scott and Johnson eras—a true chronicle of a band that survived the unthinkable and thrived.
Still, Bonfire is not without merit. It’s a flawed but heartfelt tribute, rich in nostalgia and brimming with energy. For all its inconsistencies, it remains a vital document of AC/DC’s formative years, a reminder of the gritty showmanship and bawdy charisma that Bon Scott brought to the stage. For fans of the band’s earliest and rawest incarnation, this box set is both a treasure and a tantalizing “what if.”
Go to the Next Review
Back To Main Page