Layla Clark’s ‘Thunderstruck’ Cover Has Fans Talking Super Bowl Halftime

In the first seconds of Layla Clark’s “Thunderstruck” clip, the camera is close enough to catch the tape on her fingers. The Thomas Jefferson High School percussionist plays the opening AC/DC riff on a xylophone, keeping the same pulse as her mallets move across the bars.

The opening leaves Clark exposed in much the same way the original leaves Angus Young. The pattern has to hold on its own before the rest of the arrangement can build around it. On a field, the short ring of each note makes the space between strikes easy to hear.

Clark was playing at a Jaguars football halftime show in Pennsylvania. She told Axios Pittsburgh she had been playing for five years and credited the marching band for its part in the performance.

The recording starts tight on the instrument. That framing makes it easy to miss what’s coming, especially if you know the song and are listening for the sound of AC/DC’s guitars. Instead, the rest of the Jaguars supply the answer.

The clip found an audience far beyond the stands. In the comments, one viewer suggested bringing high school and college marching bands to the Super Bowl halftime show. It’s easy to hear where that idea came from once the ensemble enters.

Listen to the solo for a few seconds before the band joins. The riff’s speed grabs the ear first, but the even spacing is what gives the rest of the players something to lock into.

By the time the clip began reaching people outside western Pennsylvania, the performance was already a season old. Axios Pittsburgh traced the new wave of attention to a share by Ronnie Evans on X. Clark, who was 17 when the outlet interviewed her, had spent about five years playing her instrument. An opening that takes only a short time to hear was built on much more time at the bars.

The Super Bowl suggestion makes sense as a response to the arrangement. A stadium halftime number has to give the audience something it can recognize at a distance. Here the riff handles that job. The band can wait to come in because the music has already told listeners what song they are hearing and where the beat is.

Clark told Axios that her bandmates were a big part of what made the performance work. Listen for that relationship in the clip. Her pattern sounds spare while she is playing alone. As the Jaguars enter around her, it becomes the foundation of a fuller sound.

The studio recording makes a useful comparison. Young’s guitar has a sharper attack and a longer ring, while Clark has to place every strike with a mallet. The change in instrument makes the shape of the riff unusually clear.

There is a distinction between what the clip shows and what viewers wanted to see next. This was a school halftime performance. The Super Bowl entered the conversation through a viewer’s suggestion about school and college marching bands.

The guitar recording also makes the degree of restraint clear. The original gives the part to a guitar, whose notes can ring through the gaps. A mallet strike has a different decay, which is why the rhythm feels so sharply drawn on the field.