At a press conference before AC/DC’s only show in Britain this year, the group was asked whether they would be performing any new songs. The lead guitarist Angus Young looked aghast. “We’ve been making albums since the Crucifixion,” he replied, “so it’s hard enough to fit in all the ones we’ve already got.”

A band with possibly the most conservative instincts in the history of rock’n’roll who have nevertheless influenced artists from the Beastie Boys to the Darkness, AC/DC were the perfect choice to relaunch the Hammersmith Apollo (née Odeon) as a “serious” rock venue. Having been tempted back on the road to play some dates in Europe with the Rolling Stones, but without a new album to promote, the Anglo-Australian veterans and their sponsors agreed to peg the price of the tickets at £10, a nominal sum for an appearance at a venue that, even at normal prices, they could have sold out ten times over.

An inordinately complicated system involving every recipient of a ticket also having to collect a wristband in person was introduced, apparently to discourage touts. A huge crowd of fans was thus seen queueing outside the Apollo all day, an impressive sight from a distance perhaps, although good will towards the venue was in very short supply by the time most people actually got their noses through the doors.

Once inside, however, they were rewarded with a performance of unlikely magic and unyielding magnificence. Quite how Angus Young, now 48 and balding, still managed to get away with wearing a black satin schoolboy uniform which he stripped off during The Jack to reveal a pair of Union Jack boxer shorts, was a mystery. His tiny brother Malcolm Young, 50 and nowadays a dead ringer for Iggy Pop, kept his clothes on while playing immaculate, tail-gunner guitar behind him. Meanwhile the singer Brian Johnson, 54, in his trademark flat cap, moved around the stage as if carrying a sack of coal on his back, cackling and croaking his way through tales of sexual debauchery and eternal damnation.

The music and the theatrical routines were as unchanging as time itself. Every song began with a monolithic, blues-rock riff and ended like a scene from Battlestar Galactica, drums and guitars exploding, dying and then exploding again in a tableau of carefully choreographed chaos.

A huge bell was lowered from the roof during Hells Bells, its rope dangling like a hangman’s noose, and four sinister cannons, lined up behind the speakers, let off a deafening fusillade during the climax to For Those About to Rock (We Salute You). While venues and their managements come and go, AC/DC endure, more a force of nature than a rock band.

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