Layla Clark’s ‘Thunderstruck’ Has Fans Pitching a Different Super Bowl Halftime Show
Layla Clark was playing a football halftime show when the clip that would put her name in a Super Bowl conversation was recorded. The Thomas Jefferson High School percussionist was stationed at the front of the field, where her mallets carried the opening of AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck” before the Jaguars marching band came in.
The Pennsylvania performance dates to 2025. It found a much bigger audience when the video spread on X in late October 2026 and the West Jefferson Hills School District shared it. One reply to the district’s post imagined the students playing the Super Bowl halftime show in place of a celebrity headliner.
The suggestion makes sense on the clip’s own terms. “Thunderstruck” announces itself quickly. The repeating figure still sounds like Angus Young’s guitar part even though the notes have a sharper attack and die away faster on the bars.
The camera keeps Clark close while the field behind her stays in view. That lets you watch two performances at once: the work her hands are doing on the opening figure and the formations moving behind her. Once the arrangement fills out, the people who started in the background have their turn.
Clark told Axios that her bandmates help make the performance work. In an interview with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, she said five mallet percussionists were playing together in the opening. The camera singles her out, but the part is already a group effort.
Watch for the point when the close-up starts to feel too small for the sound. Clark is still in front of the lens, but the arrival of the full band is what gives the clip the scale that made viewers think of a bigger halftime stage.
AC/DC’s own stadium version
At River Plate, AC/DC let Young establish the riff in front of a stadium crowd. The sound is different, but the setup is familiar: an exposed opening gives everyone a figure to recognize before the band changes the scale of it.
What happens when the riff changes instruments
2CELLOS give the same figure to strings. Played back to back with the Jaguars, their version makes it easier to hear how much of the song’s identity lives in the pattern itself.
