AC/DC concert shakes up Australian city, literally

An AC/DC concert on Wednesday night made Melbourne, Australia shake, rattle, and roll with low-level seismic tremors, the Australian Broadcast Corporation reported.

The heavy metal concert registered in the 2-5 hertz range, which is enough for people to feel the ground shake, even 3.5 kilometers (2.1 miles) away from the concert. People could actually hear the concert as far as 10 km (6.2 mi) away, said ABC.

Adam Pascale, chief scientist at the Seismology Research Centre, based in Melbourne, underlined that the team picked up ground motion, not sound in 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," said Pascale.

Crowd activity often had the biggest impact on whether a concert registered on seismic monitors, he said.

"If everyone's sort of bouncing in unison, it tends to amplify the signal so we can pick it up a little bit better," he added.

"The sound waves that people were experiencing nearby and feeling something through their bodies, that's the equivalent to what our seismographs feel," he explained.

This is AC/DC's first show in Australia in 10 years.

AC/DC is one of the most popular rock bands in the world, with sales of 200 million albums worldwide and classic songs such as Back in Black, Highway to Hell, and the seismologically accurate You Shook Me All Night Long.