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If You Want Blood You've Got It by  Released13 October 1978Recorded30 April 1978Venue (Glasgow)   Length52:42      chronology
(1978)If You Want Blood You've Got It
(1978)
(1979) from If You Want Blood " (Live)"
Released: October 1978 Music video on 

If You Want Blood You've Got It (written as just If You Want Blood) is the first live album by Australian  band , and their only live album with  as lead vocalist. It was 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. The album was re-released in 1994 on  and in 2003 as part of the AC/DC Remasters series.

Background

The album was released six months after the band's previous studio album . A 'best-of' package called 12 of the Best had been in the works, but the project was scrapped in favour of a live album. It was recorded during the 1978 Powerage tour and contains songs from , , , and . It is the last Bon Scott-era AC/DC album produced by  and , who also produced the band's first five studio releases.

In his 1994 Bon Scott memoir Highway to Hell, author  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."

A concert at the  in , Scotland on 30 April 1978 was used for the live tracks. It has never been confirmed if any other tracks from the tour were also used. The concert is also 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.

"This gig summed up what made AC/DC so special live: the energy, the rapport with the crowd and the way those simple yet classic songs took on another life. You hear all of this on If You Want Blood. It's a great reminder of how remarkable the band and their fans were that night." – , DJ

"", performed on the night, was removed from the album release, while the encore – "Fling Thing/Rocker" – was edited, removing "Fling Thing" and cutting out Angus's extended solo, as he did a walk around the audience (with an early version of a wireless guitar lead). This part of the band's concert theatrics later accompanied "Let There Be Rock"; "Rocker" has been performed only a few times since Bon Scott's passing in 1980. The live "Dog Eat Dog" was released as the b-side of the single "" in November 1978, but only in Australia. It was rereleased worldwide in 2009 on the two (standard) and three (collectors) CD boxed set compilation , featuring Australian-only songs not released internationally at the time, and live b-Sides from 7" and 12" singles. The encores "Fling Thing" and "Rocker" (with a complete guitar solo) appeared only on footage of the concert by a Dutch TV station played at the time, but were eventually released on the  DVD.

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

A song titled "If You Want Blood (You've Got It)" appeared on the next album: the band's US chart breakthrough, .

Reception Professional ratingsReview scoresSourceRating5/10

The album is often considered to be one of the greatest live albums of all time. In a 1992 interview with Metal Hammer at the time of the band's , Malcolm Young admitted, "I personally still prefer the old album. We were young, fresh, vital and kicking ass." Greg Prato of  notes, "While most other rock bands of the era were busy experimenting with  or creating studio-perfected epics, AC/DC was one of the few specializing in raw and bluesy hard rock, as evidenced by 1978's live set, If You Want Blood You've Got It." Eduardo Rivadavia of  enthuses, "Other concert records may boast more songs, more Top 40 hits or even more crowd-pleasing gimmicks. But very few can challenge the sheer excitement and reckless abandon captured on AC/DC’s terrific concert document." The album was listed at #2 on Classic Rock magazine's readers' poll of "50 Greatest Live Albums Ever". Carlo Twist of Blender magazine praised the album, saying that "They were always a mighty live act, and this is the sound of AC/DC in Europe just prior to 1979's U.S. breakthrough. The audience's hysteria regularly cuts through the amps, as they howl along to singer Bon Scott's tale of sexually transmitted disease ("The Jack") and punctuate guitarist Angus Young's staccato riffing on "Whole Lotta Rosie." Imagine a punk-rock Chuck Berry played at nosebleed volume."

Concert footage

The entire Glasgow concert was filmed but the complete footage has never been released. Eventually, "" and "Fling Thing/Rocker" segments were made available on the DVD , released in 2005. Video footage was also used from the show on Family Jewels using the "Rock 'n' Roll Damnation" studio version audio track promotional clip. Segments from the concert (the songs "Rock 'n' Roll Damnation", "Dog Eat Dog" and "Let There Be Rock") were made available on the DVD , released in 2007. "" was included on the bonus disc on the three-disc edition of Plug Me In.

Track listing

All tracks are written by ,  and .

Side oneNo.TitleLength1."Riff Raff" (from )5:592."Hell Ain't a Bad Place to Be" (from )4:103."Bad Boy Boogie" (from )7:294."The Jack" (from )5:485."Problem Child" (from )4:40 Side twoNo.TitleLength6."" (from )4:057."" (from )3:418."" (from )5:059."" (from )8:3310."Rocker" (from )3:24Total length:52:44