The official reason they gave Evans for firing him from the three chord wonders was that his backing vocals were not up to par. Not that I would regard his successor to be in the Timothy B. Schmidt league though!
I saw AC/DC with Evans at the time opening for Rainbow. He probably played the Ripper but I have no recollection. I remember three things from that concert, a) I thought them hopeless (and so did the Rainbow audience), dead-certain they would go nowhere, b) the singer carried the tiny guitarist on his back and c) the only song remotely approaching having a chorus was It's a Long Way to the Top. German rock critics chided them as "poor man's Status Quo" at the time, but I thought that was unfair to Quo who had better melodies and a smoother, less heavy-handed groove.
