AC/DC "If You Want Blood You've Got It"

If You Want Blood You've Got it is the first live album by Australian hard rock band AC/DC, originally released in the UK and Europe on 13 October 1978, in the US on 21 November 1978, and in Australia on 27 November 1978. All songs were written by Angus Young, Malcolm Young and Bon Scott. The album was re-released in 1994 on Atco Records and in 2003 as part of the AC/DC Remasters series.

The album was released a mere six months after the band's previous studio album Powerage. Originally, a greatest hits package had been in the works called 12 of the Best but the project was scrapped in favor of a live album. It was recorded during the 1978 Powerage tour and contains songs from T.N.T., Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap, Let There Be Rock, and Powerage. It is the last Bon Scott-era AC/DC album produced by Harry Vanda and George Young, who also produced the band's first five studio releases. In his 1994 Bon Scott memoir Highway to Hell, author Clinton Walker observes, "Live albums, which tended to be double or triple sets in which songs short in their studio versions were stretched out into extended tedium, were for some reason popular in the seventies. If You Want Blood reversed this tradition...it boasted a blunt ten tracks and, allowing nothing extraneous, got straight to the point, that being raging AC/DC rock and roll."

AC/DC's concert at the Apollo Theatre in Glasgow, Scotland on 30 April 1978 was used for the live tracks (it has never been confirmed if any other concert tracks from this tour are used also) that appeared on the album, as it can be clearly heard during "The Jack" Scott exclaiming "Any virgins in Glasgow?" as proof of some songs' concert location. This concert will also be remembered for the encore when AC/DC came back on stage dressed in the Scottish Football strip, paying homage to Scott's and the Young brothers' homeland. A song with the same title of "If You Want Blood (You've Got It)" appeared on the next album, and the band's US album charts breakthrough, Highway to Hell.

The song "Dog Eat Dog" performed on the night was eventually removed from the album release, and the encore "Fling Thing/Rocker", was edited for the album, removing Fling Thing and cutting out the extended Angus guitar solo, as he does his now notable walk around the audience (with an early version of a wireless guitar lead). This part of the band's future concert theatrics would be replaced with the 1977 album title track "Let There Be Rock", as they haven't played the song "Rocker" more than a few times since the passing of Bon Scott in 1980. The live rendition of "Dog Eat Dog" from the concert was initially released as the B-side of the single Whole Lotta Rosie in November 1978, later that same year but only in Australia. It was later re-released worldwide in 2009 on the two (standard) & three (collectors) CD boxed set compilation Backtracks, featuring the Australian album only songs not released internationally at the time and the live B-Sides from their 7" & 12" singles over the years that are not easily found any more. The encore songs "Fling Thing" and "Rocker" (with its complete guitar solo) have appeared only on video footage of the concert by a Dutch TV station played at the time.


According to the 2006 book AC/DC: Maximum Rock & Roll, the album title was an extension of Scott's response to a journalist at the Day on the Green festival in July 1978 who asked what they could expect from the band and Scott replied, "Blood." The cover art is from a shoot done with Atlantic Records' staff photographer Jim Houghton before a show at Boston's Paradise Theater, the idea for which came from Atlantic's art director, Bob Defrin.

The entire Glasgow concert was filmed but the complete footage has never been released. Eventually, "Riff Raff" and "Fling Thing/Rocker" segments were made available on the AC/DC Family Jewels DVD. Footage was also used on the "Rock 'n' Roll Damnation" promotional clip also available in Family Jewels. Segments from the concert (the songs "Rock 'n' Roll Damnation", "Dog Eat Dog" and "Let There Be Rock") were made available on the DVD Plug Me In, released in 2007. The segment "Bad Boy Boogie" was included on the bonus disc on the three-disc edition of the DVD.