“I reckon Ritchie Blackmore might have thought we’d made a mistake having them open for Rainbow, as we just couldn’t match them”: When AC/DC blew Rainbow off stage

A composite photograph of AC/DC’s Angus Young and Ritchie Blackmore of Rainbow performing onstage in the 1970s.

It’s been a long time since AC/DC supported anybody, but back in the 1970s they took any gig they could. This resulted in the relatively unknown Australian band opening for such established acts as Kiss, Black Sabbath and even The Stranglers. And the headliners often didn’t know what had hit them.

One band who felt the full force of Hurricane ’DC were Rainbow. It was September 1976, and Ritchie Blackmore’s proto-symphonic rock band were at their imperial peak. Their majestic second album, Rising, had been released a few months earlier to great acclaim and now they were about to embark on a European tour in support of it, starting in Germany. The opening act? AC/DC.