AC/DC drummer Phil Rudd recently returned to the live stage on November 2nd and performed the band’s classic song “T.N.T.” with a local party act in New Zealand. Video of the performance can be seen below (courtesy of Marco’s HIGH VOLTAGE Music Channel). Phil Rudd has faced legal problems since the 2010’s regarding an alleged murder for hire plot that have kept him from touring in the U.S. with the band even after his 2020 return.
Last year, in an interview with New Zealand’s Stuff, Phil Rudd stated that he was unable to join his AC/DC bandmates at the Power Trip festival in California last year. However, he was “look[ing] forward to playing with them again in the future.”
Sitting behind the drum kit for AC/DC’s appearance at Power Trip in October last year and on the spring/summer 2024 European tour was Matt Laug. The 56-year-old Laug is an American drummer who has played with many bands/artists such as Alanis Morissette, Alice Cooper, Slash’s Snakepit and Vasco Rossi.
Matt moved to Los Angeles after graduating from South Florence High School in 1986. After attending college in Los Angeles, he became a highly sought-after studio drummer. In 2001, Laug supported AC/DC as part of Slash’s Snakepit during the North American and European legs of the “Stiff Upper Lip” tour.
In September 2023, when AC/DC announced that Laug would be playing drums for the band at the Power Trip festival, they provided no explanation for the absence of Rudd. Rudd had rejoined AC/DC for the recording of the group’s comeback album, “Power Up,” which was released in November 2020.
Rudd was let go from AC/DC after he was sentenced to eight months of home detention by a New Zealand court in 2015 after pleading guilty to charges of threatening to kill and drug possession. He was replaced on the band’s “Rock Or Bust” tour by Chris Slade, who had previously served as AC/DC’s drummer between 1989 and 1994, playing on the album “The Razor’s Edge”.
