2Cellos leaves delighted Bradley Center crowd thunderstruck

"Milwaukee, are you ready to rock?" is always a rhetorical question, even on a school night. 

2Cellos reaffirmed this principle Wednesday evening at the BMO Harris Bradley Center, where an enthusiastic crowd stomped and cheered throughout a crisp performance. 

Luka Šulić and Stjepan Hauser take an electric version of Yo-Yo Ma's favorite instrument and apply it to rock, pop and R&B songs with enthusiasm and droll showmanship. Both are classically trained; their breakthrough online hit, a remake of Michael Jackson's "Smooth Criminal," shows they have plenty of technique. 

Wednesday's show opened with a stretch of movie music drawn from the recent 2Cellos album "Score." Supplemented by a small string orchestra, Šulić and Hauser played romantic themes from "The Godfather," "Love Story" and "Titanic" ("My Heart Will Go On"). Take away the smoke machine, background animations and other arena tricks, and we're not far from what used to be called easy listening. 

The "Rain Man" theme offered a hint of what would come, with drummer Dusan Kranjc applying insistent percussion. The excellent Kranjc is 2Cellos' secret weapon, turning them into the great Croatian power trio. 

In the show's second half, Šulić and Hauser put their rock swagger on, with Hauser occasionally duckwalking across the stage while harnessed to his electric cello. 

The ideal candidate for a 2Cellos remake is a song with a memorable riff or chorus and a pounding beat. So it's not surprising that they're a great AC/DC cover band, ripping out a five-alarm version of "You Shook Me All Night Long" and thunderous takes on "Thunderstruck" and "Back in Black." 

But even in the fiercely rocking half of the show, they found moments for cello lyricism, particularly in their soulful rendition of the hit "Despacito."