Here’s What to Wear to AC/DC’s 2025 Tour

Some people like to plan their outfits well in advance for concerts. This article is for you.

Maybe you’re the type to wear a band shirt to see that band in concert, or maybe you’re the type who thinks of that as weird. We’ve come up with a third option of sorts: an outfit inspired by the band’s own fashion choices.

When one thinks of AC/DC in particular, some iconic clothing items come to mind. If you’re heading to one of their shows this year — they have dates lined up all over the world through August – here are some apparel ideas with links included.

We’re going to work from the top down. For decades now, singer Brian Johnson has sported a newsboy style cap, which he actually started wearing for purely practical reasons. Back when he was a member of the English band Geordie, Johnson would get awfully warm in the packed clubs that had strong heat in the winter and no air conditioning in the summer. One evening, his brother loaned him his hat to keep the sweat out of his eyes.

“And I put it on, because in the north of England, everybody wore caps — you know, after the war and all that, it was a kind of uniform for the Geordies and Yorkshiremen and people like that,” Johnson explained to Planet Rock (via blabbermouth.net) in 2020. “And I wore it for the second half [of the set] and I went, ‘That’s marvelous! It’s brilliant!’ I said, ‘I’m gonna buy one of them!’ And he says, ‘You can keep that. I’m not putting that on.’ So I did. And then people started remembering, ‘Oh, it’s a good band. The singer that wears the cap. Him.’ And then straight away, we got instant recognition with things like that. And we got gigs, we got shows. ‘We want that group. What are they called? You know, the singer wears the cap!’ ‘Oh, right. Geordie!’ And it stuck.”

We’d recommend a cap of your own to keep the sweat out of your eyes while rocking along to AC/DC, preferably in a herringbone pattern like Johnson’s.

There’s a couple approaches you could take to the tie. Option one: go for Angus Young‘s traditional striped tie that mimics his schoolboy look. (His sister, Margaret, was the one who came up with that idea many decades ago.) Young usually sports red or blue ones, but the great thing about this Amazon selection is you can pick just about any color of the rainbow.

You could also wear a more updated variation of the tie by wearing one of the band’s own merch options: an AC/DC-themed tie covered in lightning bolts.

Another iconic item in Johnson’s wardrobe is the sleeveless denim vest — perhaps another tool for keeping cool on stage. Back in the day, you might have seen him sporting a lighter wash, but these days he tends to go for the darker color denim, or even black. This particular option from Amazon not only comes in multiple different colors, but also features the distressed detailing along the arm holes, which makes it look like you made it yourself!

Or if you happen to be flush with some extra cash, you could also quite literally buy a vest worn by Johnson himself on tour.

Perhaps you’re really committed to the bit and you’d like to match Young’s famous schoolboy outfit. The first time the guitarist wore the ensemble was in April of 1974, and it was actually his own original school outfit.

“That was the most frightened I’ve ever been on stage, but thank God, I had no time to think. I just went straight out there,” he recalled to Guitar World in 2020. “The crowd’s first reaction to the shorts and stuff was like a bunch of fish at feeding time — all mouths open. I had just one thing on my mind: I didn’t want to be a target for blokes throwing bottles. I thought if I stand still I’m a target. So I never stopped moving. I reckoned if I stood still I’d be dead.”

Recreating this outfit is easier said than done — internet searches unfortunately did not turn up any velvet suits with shorts. But we’ve come up with some alternatives.

The shorts are really key here. It’s what gives Young’s look the schoolboy vibe, so you could go for that in a lightweight material like this one. But if you’d prefer to stick to the classic velvet/velour material like Young typically wears, there’s this option and this one. And yes, they come in multiple colors.

Shoe-wise, you can sort of get away with whatever you’d like here — loafers, sneakers, etc. The important thing is the white socks that must stick out a bit above your shoe, which you can practically buy in bulk on Amazon.

As far as Young sees it, it’s not just an outfit — it’s an identity.

“Some people look great in civilian gear,” he once said. “Like when I was younger and saw Jimi Hendrix, and went, ‘Wow!’ It’s the image, that’s the first thing when you’re younger. How cool he looked! How cool he played. And I thought, ‘I want to be that cool.’ So I put the school suit on. That’s my thing. Why do people come to see us play? It’s the school suit. It works!”