AC/DC literally shook Melbourne all night long on Wednesday night. The band’s Australian tour kickoff in the city registered on a local seismograph, which detects earthquake activity.
Adam Pascale, the chief scientist at the Seismology Research Centre, told Australia’s ABC News that the concert registered in the 2-5 hertz range on a seismograph at his office in nearby Richmond, which is a little over two miles from the venue, Melbourne Cricket Ground.
Get AC/DC Tickets Here
“The sound waves that people were experiencing nearby and feeling something through their bodies, that’s the equivalent to what our seismographs feel,” explained Pascale.
He continued, “We’re picking up the ground motion, we’re not picking up the sound from the air. So you’ve got speakers on the ground pumping out vibrations and that gets transmitted through the ground, but also the crowd jumping up and down is feeding energy into the ground.”
Related Video
Pascale further noted, “If everyone’s sort of bouncing in unison, it tends to amplify the signal so we can pick it up a little bit better. Whereas, if it’s sort of just general crowd motion, like even at the grand final at the MCG [Melbourne Cricket Ground], we can still pick that up.”
ABC News reports that residents as far as five miles away were able to hear the concert, with a number of people sharing their experiences on social media.
However, as much as AC/DC shook Melbourne, it didn’t quite measure up to Taylor Swift’s 2024 shows at the same venue, which registered the highest of any concerts monitored by the Seismology Research Centre. Never underestimate the power of the Swifties!
Fans in North America can make their own waves when AC/DC return to the continent for the recently announced 2026 leg of their “Power Up” tour that kicks off July 11th in Charlotte, North Carolina. Tickets are available here.
Watch AC/DC performing “You Shook Me All Night Long” in Melbourne below.