If there’s one legendary rock ‘n’ roller who can turn Billy Joel into his backing vocalist at Joel’s own show, then it’s the one and only Brian Johnson. The thunderous voice of AC/DC tore the roof off Madison Square Garden with a rollicking rendition of “You Shook Me All Night Long,” with Joel providing piano and backing vocals. The Piano Man introduced the English rocker by noting that he was from “maybe the best band I ever saw in my life” before the iconic opening chords of “You Shook Me…” rang out.
The then-66-year-old Johnson has aged like fine wine. You can tell he really takes care of his voice, and he just sounds absolutely killer. Johnson sang all the high notes with his signature hellraising shriek and worked the crowd with the ease of a natural-born star. You can tell Joel was just loving seeing the Acca Dacca legend fronting his band, as The Piano Man was grinning from ear to ear throughout the song. We have to say if you need a feel-good pick-me-up, then this is just the jam to do it!
Johnson uploaded the collab to his YouTube channel, where it drew 2.2 million views. Fans were digging the surprise appearance and added comments such as “Probably the most fun Billy Joel’s band ever had” and “What’s most impressive is that Brian never cheats. He doesn’t make the audience sing the whole chorus or back off on the hard notes. He always puts everything he’s got into the whole performance, which is why he’s still one of the most legendary frontmen ever in rock.”
Johnson always brings the fire when he sits in with other bands. More proof of this came when he hit the stage with English art rockers Muse to tear up Reading Fest with the Acca Dacca classic “Back in Black.” We never thought he’d hear Muse play such straight-ahead rock ‘n’ roll, but has to say they absolutely crushed it. Seeing Muse frontman Matt Bellamy just having a ball onstage while tearing it up on the guitar is also a lot of fun! It’s such a trip seeing him rip an Angus Young solo.
AC/DC dropped “You Shook Me All Night Long” on August 15, 1980. The song was the band’s first release with Johnson on the mic, after the legendary Bon Scott passed at just 33 years old on February 19, 1980. The songwriting is credited to Johnson and the band’s guitar duo Angus Young and Malcolm Young. However, numerous people, including Bon Scott’s girlfriend Silver Smith and AC/DC’s booking agent Doug Thaler, have asserted that much of the lyrics were in fact written by Scott, citing numerous lines that they saw in the late frontman’s lyric books prior to his passing.
