I attended a concert by Thunderstruck at The Wharf, an open air venue on the shore of Lake Michigan, in Manitowoc, Wisconsin on Thursday, June 27th. Thunderstruck’s concert was a tribute to the music of the band AC/DC. The music of AC/DC has been described as heavy blues to hard rock to even heavy metal. Their music has a rocking signature riff. The music is built around a handful of similar, familiar cords which are repetitive. The earlier songs relied on power cords while others are played with simple, open cords. The music of AC/DC features guitar solos a lot. The guitar solos feature a lot of blues scales and licks which are played faster than earlier blues. Their music has lots of repetition, but there is contrast and variation as well.

The tone created by Thunderstruck definitely captures the spirit of AC/DC, especially with the guitarist who did a great job copying Angus Young's stage moves while also catching me by surprise by playing guitar while walking down the aisles of the chairs and standing on the bar. The vocalist really nailed Brian Johnson's pitch. Before they came on stage the song Big Balls started playing as a way of getting us amped up for what was coming. 

Thunderstruck performed AC/DC’s biggest hits. They started the concert with If You Want Blood (You Got It) and ended with For Those About To Rock (We Salute You).  The AC/DC’s songs Thunderstruck played ranged in different keys, but the guitar and bass tunings caught my ear because I noticed that they were in standard tuning. The songs varied in tempo as well, from slow songs like The Jack and Back In Black to fast songs such as Let There Be Rock and Whole Lotta Rosie to songs in between like T.N.T. and Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap. The band played a lot of my favorites such as Highway To Hell, however they played songs that I was unfamiliar with such as The Jack that, because of how mellow it was performed, as compared to other songs, has now become one of my favorites. Despite the two songs Whole Lotta Rosie and Let There Be Rock having the same speed or tempo they have different tone colors. The tone color for Whole Lotta Rosie was bright whereas Let There Be Rock was dark.

The music at this concert was very high energy. There was an obvious dynamic or connection between the members of the band as well as the dynamics, or loudness, of their music as they varied from forte to fortissimo according to the songs performed. 

I thoroughly enjoyed this concert. I was able to buy some merch to keep as a remembrance of a great night of music appreciation.