As a young boy, Jake Wagner was struck by how the Las Vegas Thunder minor-league hockey team energized fans not just on the ice, but through the speakers at the Thomas & Mack Center.
AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck” blasted during player introductions, and “as a kid, I was just floored that they could play a song that would give me some feeling and give me an experience, whether we won or lost,” he said.
Nearly two decades after the Thunder folded, Wagner, 28, is in charge of what Vegas Golden Knights fans hear at T-Mobile Arena. As the team’s in-game music producer, the Las Vegas native selects the sound effects, plays keyboards and picks tunes — some of them stadium anthems, others more obscure, he said.