Nobody expected the Queen of Power Ballads to transform into a swaggering rock goddess, but Céline Dion completely tore up the rulebook in Las Vegas. She teamed up with Anastacia for a blistering cut of AC/DC’s “You Shook Me All Night Long.” The energy between the duo was absolutely off the charts, and you can tell Dion loved to let her hair down and go crazy on something completely different. It’s impossible to watch this without a huge smile on your face, as the joyful abandon with which Dion performs is so infectious.
Dion and Anastacia took on the AC/DC classic at the MGM Grand Garden Arena stage for the VH1 Divas Las Vegas televised concert. Anastacia was certainly the right partner to work up a storm on the 1980 hit, as while she’s known as a pop and funk artist, the raw power that she delivers on the mic and with her stage show makes her a natural rock ‘n’ roller. And we have to say that seeing Dion play air guitar and cheekily do Angus Young’s signature duck walk was absolutely hilarious!
The timing made the collaboration even more fascinating. Dion was returning from a two-year hiatus with her chart-topping album A New Day Has Come, while Anastacia had recently broken out internationally with powerhouse hits of her own. Seeing two prominent pop divas completely drop their usual stage show to channel Angus Young and Brian Johnson gave the telecast an electrifying start that nobody saw coming.
Beyond the rock theatrics, the evening served a serious purpose: VH1 said the event raised over $1.4 million for public school music education through the Save the Music Foundation. Dion already shared a behind-the-scenes tie to AC/DC through producer Robert John “Mutt” Lange, who produced both Back in Black and a track on Dion’s contemporary comeback record. It seems that singing AC/DC live for the first time with Dion lit a fire under Anastacia. The Chicago star continued bringing hard rock anthems to festival stages, as seen in this concert footage of her performing “Back in Black” and “Sweet Child O’ Mine” in Vienna.
Over the years, the duet has sparked plenty of entertaining debate among critics. While AllMusic praised the opening number as a high point of the commercial release, the staff at Total Guitar took a dimmer view, declaring it as the worst cover of all time on their 2008 ranking. Decades later, a retrospective ranking in El País viewed it far more generously, placing the Las Vegas set among the best pop tributes to the Australian rock legends.
Online viewers remain just as engaged by the unlikely collision of genres today. Viewers added comments such as “Wait people don’t like this? I’m not a Celine Dion fan but I have to admit she nailed this” and “As an aging AC/DC fan I got to say Celine and Anastasia absolutely banged that straight out of the ball park. Amazing performance!”