Tom Walker: 'Seeing AC/DC when I was 9 kicked-started my love of music'
A mightily impressive first gig
Last updated 26th Nov 2019
Hat-wearing music sensation, Tom Walker, says attending an AC/DC concert when he was just nine years old kick-started his love of music.
Following in the footsteps of U2’s Adam Clayton, Sam Fender, Skunk Anansie’s Skin and Ultravox’s Midge Ure, Tom Walker recently featured on Absolute Radio’s series Time To Listen to talk about the songs that mean the most to him.
Time To Listen explores music’s positive impact on our mental health and, during Danielle Perry’s evening show from 7pm on Monday to Thursday, a guest musician picks a song each day that has made a difference to their lives.
A special omnibus half-hour show with all of their choices from throughout the week, plus an extra fifth choice, airs each week in The Sunday Night Music Club from 8pm.
Tom Walker’s first choice on Time To Listen was AC/DC’s timeless 1980 anthem ‘Back In Black’, which he was lucky enough to witness in concert on the Stiff Upper Lip tour at Paris Bercy in autumn 2000 when he was a fresh-faced nine-year-old.
Reflecting upon the huge impact the experience had on him, Tom said: “I’ve chosen this song because it was my first ever gig that I can remember with my dad. I was nine years old and he took me to Paris to watch AC/DC.
“The whole journey of getting there where me and my dad couldn’t figure out the French tube system – we had to hope over the gates to get to the concert in time. The whole thing is so vivid in my memory. It was the kind of thing that kicked everything off for me musically. I fell in love with the guitar. I fell in love with the concert, with the crowd, with the atmosphere. It was just a big part of my life I guess.”
Keep your eyes peeled this week for a feature on the Absolute Radio presenters’ first concerts!
Listen to Tom Walker on Time To Listen:
Tom Walker’s other song choices were as follows:
Amy Winehouse ‘Back To Black’ (2006)
“I remember watching the Amy Winehouse documentary (2015 documentary film Amy) and I guess one of the things of being a singer-songwriter or artist in this business (one thing) people might worry about is the fame aspect of it. I remember watching that documentary and it scaring the life out of me. It just seemed that this amazingly talented person had been totally led astray. I don’t know, it just hit me really hard watching it. She was such an amazing talent, an amazing singer. It seemed such a shame.”
Foo Fighters ‘Learn to Fly’ (1999)
“I’ve picked this song because it was one of the funniest music videos I’ve ever seen in my life. They got the boys from Tenacious D (Jack Black and Kyle Gass) down to do the video. It was one of the first videos where I’d seen comedy brought in to a rock song video. It kind of kicked off an era, I think, for really funny music videos. I just thought it was something so different from anything else at the time – you had a lot of really serious, emotional videos at that time and Foo Fighters were doing something completely different. They had a lot of mad videos and that was definitely one of them.”
The Police ‘Roxanne’ (1978)
“Apparently before I could even speak, I was singing along to The Police tracks in the back of the car. My mum was trying to always work out what I was requesting cos I’d be on the back seat of the car saying ‘put on Roxanne’ but I couldn’t obviously speak yet and I was just shouting absolute madness at her. Then one day she worked out that every time I shouted something, and she’d put on pretty much any record by The Police, it would shut me up for a long time. Over the years people have said that I’ve got this reggae lilt to my voice in the way that I perform my vocals. I think that’s come from listening to a lot of The Police at a young age.”
John Mayer ‘Stop This Train’ (2006)
"This is one of those songs that’s a bit emotional because he talks about getting older in it and becoming part of the next generation that’s not going to have his parents there to have his back. I think it’s something we all worry about at some point. My parents have just turned 60, which is not very old I know, but it’s always in the back of your mind isn’t it? How great your parents are and what a shame it would be to not have them in your life. He sings ‘Stop this train, I want to get off and go home again’, it’s always gets me.”