AC/DC came to rock the Melbourne Cricket Ground on Wednesday night, Nov. 12 and the city felt it.
The opening date of AC/DC’s Power Up tour of Australia made waves that were detected by earthquake monitoring equipment, and could be felt, and heard, deep into this former Olympic City.
According to Adam Pascale, chief scientist at the Seismology Research Centre, the concert registered in the 2-5 hertz range at their office in Richmond, some 2 miles from the concert at the towering MCG.
That’s enough force for people to feel the ground move.
“The sound waves that people were experiencing nearby and feeling something through their bodies, that’s the equivalent to what our seismographs feel,” Pascale told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. A resident some 6 miles away told the ABC they could hear the concert.
“We’re picking up the ground motion, we’re not picking up the sound from the air,” Pascale added.
“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.”
Although AC/DC came to rock, the largest signals received by the Seismology Research Centre were generated by Taylor Swift’s record-busting three-night stand at the MCG in 2024, Pascale remarked.
Stadium rock can move us, literally. Oasis’s now-completed tour of Live ’25 tour of Australia (via Live Nation) generated a “clear uptick in seismic signal” when fans “started pounding the ground” at Marvel Stadium during a show earlier in the month, the center confirmed earlier.
AC/DC doesn’t do things by halves. These latest round of shows require 300 tons of steel to build the production, with 28 tons of PA and speakers pumping out the sound. A crew of 155 are working each show, which consumes 500kw of power every night.
With Angus Young on lead guitar, vocalist Brian Johnson, rhythm guitarist Stevie Young, drummer Matt Laug and bass player Chris Chaney, the Rock Hall-inducted legends ripped out the classics at the MCG, including “Back In Black,” “Thunderstruck,” “Hells Bells,” “Riff Raff” and much more.
AC/DC last toured Australia and New Zealand in 2015, the domestic leg of their Rock or Bust world tour. On that visit, Young and Co. shifted more than 520,000 tickets across 11 coast-to-coast dates, including shows in Auckland and Wellington.
Next up, the second of two shows this Sunday (Nov. 16) at the MCG, followed by dates in Sydney, Adelaide, Perth and Brisbane.
TEG Van Egmond, a division of TEG, is producing AC/DC’s nine-date national tour, with special guests Amyl & The Sniffers.
AC/DC 2025 “Power Up” Australia Tour Dates:
Nov. 12 — Melbourne Cricket Ground (completed)
Nov. 16 — Melbourne Cricket Ground
Nov. 21 — Accor Stadium, Sydney
Nov. 25 — Accor Stadium, Sydney
Nov. 30 – Adelaide bp Adelaide Grand Final
Dec. 4 — Optus Stadium, Perth
Dec. 8 — Optus Stadium, Perth
Dec. 14 – Suncorp Stadium, Brisbane
Dec. 18 – Suncorp Stadium, Brisbane