AC/DC’s Melbourne Show Shakes the City (Literally) With Seismology Readings

AC/DC’s Melbourne concert was so powerful it registered on earthquake detection equipment across the city.

AC/DC’s return to Australia after nearly a decade didn’t just electrify fans, it literally shook Melbourne. The first stop of their Australian POWER UP tour at the MCG last night (12 November) was powerful enough to be detected on local earthquake monitoring equipment.

According to the Seismology Research Centre, the vibrations from AC/DC’s show registered between 2-5 hertz, picked up by monitors at their Richmond office about three and a half kilometres from the stadium. Chief scientist at the Seismology Research Centre Adam Pascale said both the band’s sound system and the crowd’s energy played a part.

“The sound waves that people were experiencing nearby and feeling something through their bodies, that’s the equivalent to what our seismographs feel,” Pascale said (via ABC). “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.”

He added that the crowd’s movement is often what amplifies seismic activity during live events. “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, we can still pick that up.” Given the size of the crowd at AC/DC, which was projected to be around 80 thousand, it’s no surprise the thunder (sorry, no pun intended) of their movement was felt for kilometres.

It’s worth noting this isn’t the first time Melbourne has shook (all night long) during a major gig, with seismic readings recorded during Oasis’ show last fortnight.

AC/DC’s Power Up world tour kicked off in Europe in 2024, selling over two million tickets across 24 shows before heading to North America and now Australia. One resident living 10 kilometres from the MCG told the ABC they could still hear the show clearly.

“We’ve got somebody who lives just across the road from the office in Richmond and they said it was like they were at the concert, it was so loud,” Pascale said.

Despite shaking the ground, AC/DC didn’t break records. “The largest signals that we received were on the three nights that Taylor Swift played there,” Pascale added.

The Environment Protection Authority confirmed it received two noise complaints in relation to AC/DC’s performance. However, for most of Melbourne, it was just rock ‘n’ roll.