OC/DC: Living precisely 1.6 centimetres from the edge. PART 1.

Life on the road can be gruelling for any musician. The lack of sleep, the drugs, the drink, the obsessive urge to count each and every lamppost at night and the prolonged absence of normality could drive any ordinary band mad. OC/DC are no ordinary band.

Meet Vance, lead singer of the Angus Young approved tribute act.

"When I joined the band I had real difficulty fitting in to the live set up. I feel this may be largely due to my need for at least 3 metres of personal space at any one given moment but in truth I cannot be sure. I really took a shine to the way the guys only ever set their pedals up at perfect right angles to the stage due to Tommy's 90 degree fixation. This is pure rock and roll!"

This fixation was to cause serious friction within the band when ex-bassist Frankie Firewalk left the band in order to pursue a career with Eurhythmics tribute act The Neurotics.  In stepped Steven Hilson, a technically gifted player with a fine eye for detail accompanied by a serious love of acute angles...

"At this stage some of us really thought this could mark the end of our career as the third most popular AC/DC tribute act ever, we really feared for our individual incomes. Not that it is all about the money... It's also about the number 7."

Fights would break out in almost every rehearsal. These became synonymous with the band's daily routine and would take place every 37 minutes between the hours of 3 and 6. Due to this regularity, fans began to film the perfectly choreographed scenes, resulting in a barrage of negative press attention.

The tour bus was a well organised jumble sale, Tommy's hoarding mentality meant that nothing was thrown away, simply left for Vance to file alphabetically. Steven developed a serious problem with the idea of lucky charms, keeping one fan on tour for forty dates resulting in three dead goldfish, one lost job and a complaint from the council about "below par hedgerow maintenance."