Cliff Williams coming out of retirement and Matt Laug on drums for AC/DC’s upcoming Power Trip set

Cliff Williams coming out of retirement and Matt Laug on drums for AC/DC’s upcoming Power Trip set

AC/DC will be making their return to the stage with Cliff Williams on bass and Matt Laug on drums along with presumably Brian Johnson on lead vocals, Angus Young on lead guitar and Stevie Young on rhythm guitar at the upcoming Power Trip Festival, which will take place at the Empire Polo Club in Indio, California, USA from October 6 to 8, 2023. The inaugural Power Trip Festival was to feature Guns N’ Roses and Iron Maiden on Day One, AC/DC and Ozzy Osbourne on Day Two, and Metallica and Tool on Day Three. Judas Priest have since replaced Ozzy for the upcoming Power Trip Festival given the latter’s continuing health issues.

The following message was posted on AC/DC‘s Facebook page yesterday (on September 9, 2023):

“PWR UP for Power Trip! Listen to the rehearsal of the boys powering up with Cliff Williams, who’s coming out of retirement for the festival and Matt Laug on drums.”

Back in mid-2016, Williams announced that he was retiring from touring and recording although he later played on AC/DC‘s studio album Power Up which was released in November 2020.

For those wondering who is Laug, his website indicates in part: “Welcome! Los Angeles online recording studio session drummer Matt Laug has performed on records that have sold over 35 million copies with some of the world’s most successful recording artists including: Alanis Morissette (Jagged Little Pill), Alice Cooper, Lifehouse (Hanging By A Moment), New Radicals, Melissa Etheridge, The Calling, Slash’s Snakepit, The Corrs, Richard Marx, Vasco Rossi as well as multiple movie scores & soundtracks: Ghostbusters 2016, South Park – Bigger, Longer, and Uncut, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Get Him To The Greek, as well as film documentaries, jingles & TV shows. Now Matt has teamed up with Grammy award winning engineer Tom Weir at Studio City Sound located in Studio City, CA to provide you with world class remote drum tracks LIVE online.”

According to Wikipedia, Johnson has not performed live with AC/DC since their concert at the Sprint Center in Kansas City, Missouri, USA on February 28, 2016. Back on April 19, 2016, the singer issued a statement that stated in part: “On March 7th, after a series of examinations by leading physicians in the field of hearing loss, I was advised that if I continue to perform at large venues, I risked total deafness. While I was horrified at the reality of the news that day, I had for a time become aware that my partial hearing loss was beginning to interfere with my performance on stage. I was having difficulty hearing the guitars on stage and because I was not able to hear the other musicians clearly, I feared the quality of my performance could be compromised.”