Here is the usual prologue.

My blogger pal Deke over at Thunder Bay had a cool Northern Hemisphere Summertime Series between July and August. Each week, he wrote about albums he spun during the summer.

Well, the real Earth summer is between December, January and February in the Southern Hemisphere. So the good act that Thunder Bay is, boarded a Qantas plane, landed in Sydney, survived 14 days quarantine in a Sydney hotel and is finally here to present the “Thunder Bay Down Under Summertime Series”.

And all the acts will be Australian acts.

So let’s get airborne and run wild with a familiar sounding debut.

Airbourne – Runnin’ Wild

A lot of bands came out that sounded similar to AC/DC in the 80’s like Krokus, Gotthard and Accept. Then we had Australian bands like The Poor, Screaming Jets, Choirboys and The Angels that had these kind of influences. Of course, AC/DC didn’t just come up with their sound. The black blues musicians like Chuck Berry, Bo Diddly, Robert Johnson and Johnny Lee Hooker played a big part in shaping the Australia rock sound.

And in the early 2000’s, bands like Jet and The Vines merged AC/DC influences with Rolling Stone influences. Then in 2007, Australian hard rock band Airbourne built a career off their love of AC/DC.

“Runnin’ Wild” came out on 23 June 2007. It did good business in Australia. On 29 January 2008, through Roadrunner Records, it got an official U.S release. They filled a void left by AC/DC due to AC’s long delays between new albums.

Airbourne are Joel O’Keeffe on lead vocals/guitar, his brother Ryan O’Keeffe on drums, David Roads on rhythm guitar and Justin Street on bass.

Bob Marlette is the producer.

“Stand Up for Rock ‘n’ Roll” starts off like an Y&T song, before it moves into that AC/DC style groove with a bit of peptides and steroids chucked in. And the title was perfect for the time, because by 2007, rock and roll, the way I knew it, was part of the undertow. It never went away, but it wasn’t a commercial force the way it was. And what the press classed as rock made me puke.

But change was afoot as the acts from the 80’s had gotten control of their masters and started to promote their music to a new generation.

“Runnin’ Wild” is probably one of the best songs that Cinderella didn’t write for “Night Songs” or Kix for the “Blow My Fuse” album.

“Too Much, Too Young, Too Fast” has a pretty funny comment on the YouTube video which says, “looks like early Metallica and Maiden, sounds like AC/DC”. And that intro riff resides in that AC/DC territory.

“Diamond in the Rough” has this “TNT” vibe in the verses which I like.

If you like the “Flick Of The Switch” and “Fly On The Wall” albums then you will like “Fat City”, “Blackjack”, “What’s Eatin’ You” and “Girls In Black”.

“Cheap Wine & Cheaper Women”, “Heartbreaker” and “Lets Ride” close the album and yep they sound like AC/DC tracks.

It doesn’t mean they don’t rock.

Check em out and get airbourne.