Thunderstruck bring their AC/DC tribute to the old Scottish Rite stage in April

The touring tribute plays the Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts on Saturday, April 3, 2027, at 7 p.m.

The stage on East Mulberry Street has hosted Passion Plays, symphony concerts and a century of Masonic pageantry. On a Saturday night next April it gets a schoolboy uniform and a wall of Marshall-style riffs. Thunderstruck: America's AC/DC Tribute announced on Nov. 3 that it will play the Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts on Saturday, April 3, 2027, at 7 p.m.

The theater holds 1,200, and tickets are on sale through Ticketmaster. A Saturday tribute night five months out is the kind of show a friend group plans around, so sort out who's driving now.

Thunderstruck is a touring AC/DC tribute that was officially established in 2015, though versions of it had played for several years before that. It has worked tribute-festival stages like the Pensacola Tribute Fest and Parr Fest, and it plays everywhere from small-town theaters to House of Blues rooms. The band takes the visual side seriously. A 2021 profile noted the effort to match the original band's look, Angus Young's schoolboy uniform included, and reported Tyler Melen in the Angus role. Its members range in age from 26 to 61. Fans and venues describe the show as high-energy and close to the real concert experience, which is what anyone buying an AC/DC tribute ticket wants. Dates are posted on the band's official site.

A century-old Masonic stage, a schoolboy uniform and a lot of very loud guitar.

Then there's the building, which is the local hook. The Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts started life as the Scottish Rite Temple, also called the Bloomington Consistory. It opened in 1922 and was built in part to house the American Passion Play. The Scottish Rite owned it for about 80 years and staged its own productions there, and the Bloomington Symphony was one of its big draws. Community Players also performed there from 1945 to 1961. The building was restored and reopened as the Center in 2006, part of a civic push to revitalize the north side of downtown.

Today it anchors the downtown Cultural District, with a 1,200-seat theater and a 1,000-person ballroom. That gives Twin Cities rock fans something they don't often get: an arena-rock songbook in a seated, ornate hall that grew up on pipe-organ drama. If you've only ever been inside for a school concert or a holiday show, this is a good excuse to see the room loud.

A practical note: a 7 p.m. curtain on a Saturday leaves plenty of evening for dinner downtown before or a drink on Main Street after. Seats in a hall this size go in sections, so if your group wants to sit together, buy together.

Nobody's claiming this is the real thing. That isn't the point. The point is a spring Saturday, a building with a hundred years of stories, and a room full of Bloomington–Normal people shouting the choruses.

Sources: AC/DC Tribute Band Is First Traveling Act To Perform in New Theater (The Augusta Press) (theaugustapress.com); Thunderstruck (River Cities' Reader) (rcreader.com); Thunderstruck official site (thunderstruckus.com); Bloomington Center for Performing Arts, downtown Bloomington (McLean County Museum of History) (mchistory.org); Restored Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts (Live Design) (livedesignonline.com); The Pantagraph's Holiday Spectacular (Community Players) (communityplayers.org); History (Arts Blooming) (artsblooming.org); Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts (Enjoy Illinois) (enjoyillinois.com); Ticketmaster (ticketmaster.evyy.net)