One version of the same hard rock record came with a fake banknote tucked inside a book-shaped case. The other was just a disc in a standard sleeve. Both captured AC/DC, the Australian band that had spent the previous decade turning arena rock into something louder and leaner, at full volume on the road. On October 27, 1992, Epic Records released AC/DC Live, the group's second concert album.
Two editions and Angus Bucks
The answer to the packaging riddle is simpler than it looks. AC/DC Live arrived in two editions at once, or almost at once: a single disc and a double album pressed on two LPs. The double version, later issued on two CDs, was called AC/DC Live: 2 CD Collector's Edition and followed the single disc into shops a month later. Inside its book-like case sat a novelty bill named Angus Bucks, a wink at the schoolboy-uniformed guitarist whose riffs powered the band.
That collector's edition was built for people who wanted the full night, not the highlights. The recordings came from the Razor's Edge Tour, captured in Edmonton, Dublin, Detroit and Glasgow, with a few tracks taken from Monsters of Rock festival dates in Donington and Moscow. Two songs from the album, Highway to Hell and Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap, were released as singles, proof that the live versions carried their own heat.
Brian Johnson and the Classic Rock verdict
The band on tape was the lineup that had kept AC/DC moving after the death of original singer Bon Scott. Brian Johnson sang lead, and Classic Rock magazine noted that the album refuted any claim that the group died with Scott. The same review praised Johnson's voice and the good mood running through the recordings, pointing out that the live setting gave guitarist Angus Young more room to play.
Barry Weber of AllMusic placed AC/DC Live among the best concert rock albums of the 90s, a decade when grunge had pushed many older hard rock acts off the radio. AC/DC did not adjust their sound for the times. Instead, they released a live document that leaned into the same riffs, the same strut, and the same crowd roar that had always been the point.
Sin City slip and Donington crowd noise
A small mistake on the record became a story of its own. In the intro to Sin City, Johnson mentions Dublin, but he actually spoke different words in Dublin: the phrase on the album was taken from a show in Belfast on April 27, 1991. The Dublin reference was an accidental slip by Johnson, left in the final mix rather than corrected. The song itself came from a different city altogether. The opening of Shoot to Thrill carried its own live texture: the crowd noise and guitar feedback were lifted from the Donington show, while the song itself came from Birmingham. Thunderstruck was also captured at that same Donington performance.
That willingness to keep the rough edges extended to the release strategy. A video album, AC/DC: Live at Donington, appeared on the same day as the record, giving fans a visual companion to the audio. Both versions of the album were later remastered in 2003 for the AC/DC Remasters series, but the original collector's edition remains the one people remember for its oddest detail: a novelty bill tucked inside the book-like case, folded inside a book.
The fake money was a joke, but it pointed at something real. AC/DC had reached the 90s without becoming a nostalgia act, and AC/DC Live was the proof: new recordings of old and recent songs, made in front of crowds in cities across North America and Europe, with the band's lineup intact and its sense of humor still intact. The album that shipped with a novelty bill also shipped with a claim: AC/DC was still very much alive.
The album that shipped with a novelty bill also shipped with a claim: AC/DC was still very much alive.