Watch AC/DC storm Dutch TV, three months before Bon Scott's death

DC 1979
(Image credit: AVROTROS Broadcasting)

On November 12, 1979, ahead of their evening show at Amsterdam's Jaap Edenhal, AC/DC took a time out from their European tour supporting Highway To Hell to be filmed for Dutch chart music programme TopPop, performing Girl's Got Rhythm.

It would be the Australian band's only appearance on the popular weekly chart show, and one of frontman Bon Scott's last ever TV appearances. 

Highway To Hell, the band's sixth studio album had been released in July, and the album's title track, released as its first single, had given the Australian hard rockers their third Dutch Top 20 single when released in August. But despite the publicity boost given by their appearance on national TV, broadcast on November 25, 1979, single two from the album would fail to replicate its predecessor's success.

Still, by the time the band arrived in Paris on December 9 to film their show at the Pavilion de Paris for the concert movie AC/DC: Let There Be Rock, Highway To Hell was well on its way to becoming their first million-selling album.

Watch the TopPop clip below:

Bon Scott played his final show with AC/DC on January 27, 1980, at the Gaumont Theatre in Southampton. Three weeks later, on the morning of February 19, the 33-year-old singer was found lifeless in a friend's car in East Dulwich, after a night out in London: a coroner would later classify his passing as "death by misadventure".

Paul Brannigan
Contributing Editor, Louder

A music writer since 1993, formerly Editor of Kerrang! and Planet Rock magazine (RIP), Paul Brannigan is a Contributing Editor to Louder. Having previously written books on Lemmy, Dave Grohl (the Sunday Times best-seller This Is A Call) and Metallica (Birth School Metallica Death, co-authored with Ian Winwood), his Eddie Van Halen biography (Eruption in the UK, Unchained in the US) emerged in 2021. He has written for Rolling Stone, Mojo and Q, hung out with Fugazi at Dischord House, flown on Ozzy Osbourne's private jet, played Angus Young's Gibson SG, and interviewed everyone from Aerosmith and Beastie Boys to Young Gods and ZZ Top. Born in the North of Ireland, Brannigan lives in North London and supports The Arsenal.