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Rock icons AC/DC nixed for tribute rock queens |
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Written by Dutton Peabody/Tahoe World
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Wednesday, 28 March 2007 |
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The promoters of the North Tahoe Freedom Festival, an in the works music festival scheduled for this August, have reportedly canned the festival’s biggest act in favor of a more locally popular cover band.
AC/DC, which has announced a reunion tour titled “Long Way from the Top,” specifically requested a date with the North Tahoe festival for the last stop on their tour, according to the band’s publicist, Johnny Goode.
 “The band has always had a soft spot for Tahoe,” Goode said in a phone interview earlier this week. “They wanted their first U.S. tour in six years to end somewhere close to their hearts.”
ClearLake Productions, the company behind the North Tahoe Freedom Fest, apparently had other ideas for the headliner of Tahoe’s first major music festival.
ClearLake has been very hush hush about the whole production, but according to sources close to James Tan, ClearLake President, market research showed that AC/DC cover band AC/DShe would bring in more revenue than the real deal.
The all-female band has repeatedly packed North Shore venues and put on solid cover performances.
In addition to happy promoters, local music fans seem to love the queens of cover.
 “They’re awesome,” raved Tahoe City resident Steve-O Ransom. “They just put on a killer show, and they’re so hot!”
According to Ransom — who has seen every local AC/DShe show, as well as two in Reno and three in the Bay Area also saw AC/DC live at the Oakland Coliseum in October of 1985 — the real band has faded a bit, but never was quite as good a show as the ladies who now cover it.
“AC/DC was cool, but these girls just rock so much harder,” Ransom said.
 While ClearLake did not return phone calls on the matter, or make a statement as to the specific reason the company thought AC/DShe was a better financial bet than the willing and able real deal, the truth seems to be where it always hides — public record.
Records obtained at the office of California Alcohol Beverage Control show that per persons in attendance, five times as much beer has been consumed at AC/DShe shows than any other concert in the state.
The only show to top the cover band’s numbers was AC/DC’s “Day on the Green” show in Oakland, Calif. on Sept. 2, 1978, where nearly 1.5 million bottles of beer were purchased by just under 70,000 fans.
That is an average of nearly 21 beers per person.
According to Alcohol Control, AC/DShe shows sell an average of around 14 beers per person, beside “Day on the Green,” no other AC/DC concert in California made it over the 12 beers per person mark.
While it seems that the female queens of cover have become the new divas of drinking and taken over as one of the most raucous bands anywhere, one thing is for sure, the first annual North Tahoe Freedom Festival will be one hell of a party.
"They just put on a killer show, and they're so hot!" — local AC/DShe fan
* Warning: this story, and all the rest in our April Fools' package, is completely devoid of any fact whatsoever in the spirit of April Fools' day.
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 28 March 2007 )
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