AC/DC’s long-awaited return to performing in Australia after ten years created vibrations strong enough to be detected by earthquake monitoring equipment.
The Thunderstruck rockers took the stage at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on Wednesday, 12 November 2025, marking their first Australian show since 2015.
The concert was part of their PWR UP tour and drew a massive crowd. The blend of booming sound systems and thousands of fans moving together produced ground vibrations measuring between two and five hertz, which were recorded by the Seismology Research Centre located more than three kilometres away.
Adam Pascale, the centre’s chief scientist, broke down how the concert’s physical force was captured.
He explained, “The sound waves that people were experiencing nearby and feeling something through their bodies, that is the equivalent to what our seismographs feel. We are picking up the ground motion, we are not picking up the sound from the air.”
He noted that both the speaker output and the movement of the audience played a role in the readings.
Pascale added, “So you have 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.”
He went on to say that coordinated movement from the crowd increases the intensity of the signal. “If everyone is sort of bouncing in unison, it tends to amplify the signal so we can pick it up a little bit better. Whereas, if it is just general crowd motion, like even at the grand final at the MCG, we can still pick that up.”
The Melbourne performance included a lineup of AC/DC classics such as Back in Black, Thunderstruck, and Highway to Hell.
The group is set to continue the tour with additional stadium shows in Sydney, Adelaide, Perth, and Brisbane.
The Seismology Research Centre has measured similar fan-created vibrations at major sporting events, but AC/DC’s show produced one of the strongest concert-related signals recorded in recent years.
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