AC/DC absolutely blew out everyone’s ear drums on a Wednesday night as they rocked Ohio Stadium (better known as “The Shoe”) in Columbus on the second stop of the North American leg of their 2026 POWER UP tour. With a temperature 93°F, the intense heat and humidity made the heat index peak at nearly 100°F as around 66,000 sweaty fans packed Ohio Stadium for a nearly sold out show– a good amount of them were wearing light up devil horns and black t-shirts.
Their 21-song set shook the audience all night long. In this case, rock and roll was indeed noise pollution…but in a good way. My ears are still ringing at the time of writing this, two days later.
Guitarist Angus Young, the only original founding member, was still rocking his signature style: wearing his schoolboy outfit and duckwalking across the stage at 71 years of age! He would run across the stage to shred for one side of the stadium, receive a resounding salute of applause, and then run to the other side. He even took off his tie and ran it across the fretboard.
Brian Johnson, who took over Bon Scott’s lead vocal part in 1980, has now been with the band for 46 years and he belted out his vocal parts in style. These two were joined by Stevie Young on rhythm guitar; Matt Laug on drums; and Chris Chaney on bass.
They took to the stage with “If You Want Blood (You’ve Got It)”. Their second song: “Back in Black”– wow was the crowd ready for that to be played. Getting to feel the energy in the photo pit surrounded by tens of thousands of fans was incredible. In addition to being close to the speakers, I was very close to these rock legends and could really see their passion and energy…and sweat.
Due to the scale of this venue, I had to leave the stadium with my camera before returning to my ticketed seats. While I was walking across the Lane Avenue Bridge, I heard the dissonant chimes of “Hells Bells” cut through the evening air– very reminiscent of a Saturday night Ohio State football game.
When I returned, I heard “Highway to Hell.” Did I mention how loud it was? They played “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap”, and “You Shook Me All Night Long” which both seemed to be highlights of the night for the audience.
This was a long show as the endings of songs were almost always elongated with guitar shredding and the band took longer breaks in between…but the crowd cheered throughout all of it and most people were on their feet the entire time.
The final song of their set was “Let There Be Rock”– and there was rock. The drums cut through the mix not only on this song but all of them as Laug was wearing gloves and cracking the snare with the back of a thick drumstick. They had the audience clapping and chanting along leading up to an over 10 minute long guitar solo by Angus Young.
Angus did seem young as he was shredding while riding a platform on the B stage up in the air. Confetti flew out from the stage as he got to maybe the midway point of his solo. He ran all around the stage and ended up on a platform above the Marshall speaker stacks. It was unreal. He would pause to hear roaring applause from the crowd as he kept on playing and duckwalking across the stage (I regularly go to the gym and I think I would pull something in my leg if I tried that).
He left the stage after his solo and returned with the rest of the ensemble for an encore of “T.N.T.” and “For Those About to Rock (We Salute You).” They rolled out a bunch of cannons, too many to count…at least 12 and shot them all off multiple times to end their performance. If cannons weren’t enough, there was a firework show from the mezzanine right behind the stage– enough explosives to constitute a second show.
Getting to hear AC/DC perform live and be in the photo pit was an amazing experience. I got to return to my home city of Columbus and experience a concert at The Shoe. I brought along my Dad and we both did not expect the amount of sound, performance, fireworks, and cannons that we got to experience. We will both be bringing ear protection next time.
© 2025 CleveRock Music Portal. A PROUD SHAPE CLEVELAND PRODUCTION