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#1
10-27-2006, 03:35 PM
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Loudest rock concert you've attended
What is the loudest rock concert you've ever been to? I know most of us don't carry dB meters around with us, so I don't expect anyone to actually know how loud the concert was, just which concert(s) impressed you as being the loudest. How far from the stage were you and how large was the venue? Did you endure any short-term or long-term hearing loss from the concert?
For me, Ratt's Invasion of Your Privacy concert (1985-ish) was the one that impressed me as being the loudest I ever went to. We were in the "nosebleed" section, the cheap seats in the balcony at the back of the arena, which could seat about 10,000 people. Even from at the back of the arena it was ear-splittingly loud. My ears were ringing for much of the next day, but my hearing seemed to recover. I went to about a dozen or so concerts in my teens and early 20s but I haven't been to one since. As far as I know, my hearing is still in good shape and I can detect sounds up to about 18,000 kHz when my hearing was last tested. 
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#2
10-27-2006, 03:44 PM
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The loudest shows I've been to, in terms of subjective, perceived volume, have all been at club venues (meaning enclosed spaces) with fewer than 2,000 people in the audience. The loudest by far was Sonic Youth at the University of Maryland, 1990. It was face-meltingly loud. It was stupidly loud. I was wearing -29db industrial earplugs and I was still cottony the next day.
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#3
10-27-2006, 04:08 PM
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Disaster Area
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#4
10-27-2006, 04:08 PM
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The Who concert in Chicago at the old Amphitheater. Whatever year it was when those people died in Cincinnatti..... It was that tour. I was in the second row and was way too smart to think I needed silly earplugs.
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#6
10-27-2006, 04:13 PM
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The loudest I've been to would have to be Motorhead. Even with good earplugs I was hurting through the plugs.
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#7
10-27-2006, 04:31 PM
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I suspect that the loudest concert I've ever been to was a Stryper concert in 1985. Stryper was a Christian hard-rock band, and they were ear-splittingly loud. I had that "everything sounds like I'm underwater" aftermath for two days. Other than that, it was a great show.
A Devo concert that used some stomach-churning, migraine-inducing "Sensurround" subsonic effects really knocked me for a loop. I love Devo, and I sure didn't expect that they'd make me barf.
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#8
10-27-2006, 04:33 PM
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Bob Mould (with band) on The Last Dog & Pony Show tour, 1998. Louder than the Motorhead or Who concerts I've attended combined.
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#9
10-27-2006, 04:38 PM
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Black Sabbath, mid-80s. 2nd would be Aerosmith around the same time.
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#10
10-27-2006, 04:44 PM
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I've probably heard louder since, but I always remember Emerson, Lake & Palmer on the Brain Salad Surgery tour in 1974 as being just preposterously loud.
Although the concert itself wasn't that loud, I was once seated in the front row at a Jethro Tull concert--way off to the side, right in front of the bass bin of the PA system. Every time the kick drum hit, I got a puff of air in the face.
__________________
It don't mean a fnord if it ain't got dis cord!
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#11
10-27-2006, 04:47 PM
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I saw My Bloody Valentine at the Barrowlands in Glasgow (2000 people -ish , all standing) they were unbelievably loud (louder than the Ramones or Motorhead in the same venue -eek!) - but by God the techs nailed it. Combined with the light show, it was a transcendent experience. If you've never been to the Barras it's a low slung roof and a sprung floor, and the stage is about waist height. Fucking great venue! I don't know who was doing the sound, but...good god MBV just filled the place. The most mental bit was "You made me realise" where the main riff was repeated for many minutes. With the light projector crew involved, this was...
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#12
10-27-2006, 04:55 PM
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What?!
If you want to talk to me you're just going to have to sit on my left side. I lost most of the hearing in my right ear at a Jethro Tull concert at a small venue. I was young and foolish and spent the evening leaning against a giant speaker. Good concert, though.
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#13
10-27-2006, 05:24 PM
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For arena shows I'd have to say Blue Oyster Cult. Mid-floor seats. I don't remember who headlined (BOC was opener), but I couldn't hear right for three days afterward. I remember walking out talking about how TOO LOUD the first act had been.
For a club gig, it was definitely Johnny Winter/ Robin Trower. Both would have been fine in an arena, but in the little club, with no real stage (maybe a six inch riser) it was way too much. I had to leave before Trower finished (which is saying a lot all by itself) with a massive headache and nausea.  I've been to a lot of concerts in my almost-fifty years and nobody else came close.
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#14
10-27-2006, 05:40 PM
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The Ramones. Several times, parked up against the barricade in front of Johnny. All those Marshall cabs weren't just for looks after all.
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#15
10-27-2006, 05:42 PM
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Definitely Fugazi, somewhere around '91 or '92. They're somewhat loud to begin with, of course, but someone apparently forgot to tell the sound guy that The Caberet Metro (as it was called in those days) is not a large club. It's about the size of an average backyard, but with, y'know, walls. That reflect the noise and amplify it even louder.
It was a sweet show. 
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#16
10-27-2006, 05:49 PM
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The two that spring to mind for me were not arena concerts, but one in my high school gym. The band was called Steel River, and they had fifty times the equipment needed to make you deaf, all on the stage of a brick, metal and wooden gymnasium. There was a WALL of Marshall stacks behind them. Every time the lead guitarist stepped up to play a solo, he stomped on a box that made his solo so loud and piercing that I thought my ears were going to bleed, with my hands pressed tight against them. I remember when they arrived, they had such a requirement for AC that they had to call an electrician to give them access to three-phase power.
The other was in a club in Jacksonville, FL, in 1999. I don't even know who the band was, I was waiting for someone who never showed up. These guys were not primarily concerned with music or entertaiment, I think they were trying to hurt people for showing up. My hearing may still be impaired by that experience. My ears rang steadily for about a month.
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#17
10-27-2006, 06:01 PM
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Bob Mould - Black Sheets of Rain tour (either 1990 or '91) at The Warfield in San Francisco. I was front row center in the balcony. My hearing was fully back to normal in about three days.
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#18
10-27-2006, 06:35 PM
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Mahavishnu Orchestra. I saw them twice -- indoors, where they were like people pounding your eardrums with rubber mallets, and outdoors, where they sound dissipated enough so that you could listen to the notes, which actually sounded OK.
__________________
"One never knows, do one?" Provider of quality fantasy and science fiction since 1982.
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#19
10-27-2006, 06:47 PM
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I saw the band Sanctuary with Fates Warning at a little theater in Albuquerque, NM. Apparently the sound guy for Sanctuary got upset about something. During the last two songs he just turned everything up. The back wall of the theater, which was padded with something or other, was bouncing. I didn't make it through the last two songs. I left about a minute in once he cranked everything.
Slee
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#20
10-27-2006, 07:05 PM
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#21
10-27-2006, 07:09 PM
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The Ramones, Raleigh, NC, early eighties. Had a great time up front in the mosh pit, but my ears rang for three days.
Not a rock group, but I was photographing Marvin Seese (big soul blues artist), at a festival, and right up next to the stage and huge bank of speakers. The horn section kicked in with a really high frequency, and it was a head rush, not in a good sense. My whole body vibrated, and could feel my eardrum blasting out a bit, yet, there was a rather odd transcendent sense as well, shearly from the frequency level. It did damage my hearing in the right ear. After that, learned the lesson, and wore earplugs for photographing after that.
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#23
10-27-2006, 07:42 PM
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Mine started with Skid Row, not too loud, but a bit uncomfortable. Ted Nugent followed them and shredded my ear drums. KISS closed the show and took whatever hearing I had that night and trashed it.
My ears rang for three days, so badly that I found it difficult to sleep at night. I remember making fun of the "old guys" in front of us putting in their earplugs at the beginning of the show... 
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#24
10-27-2006, 07:54 PM
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Sorry to ramble a bit, but that was one hell of an eventful night. The Pittsburgh date took place the night before the infamous Cincinnatti concert. My then-girlfriend and I were directly in front of the stage, and the crush was so bad that several times we thought we were going to get smashed up against the apron or trampled underfoot. Then, almost at the end of the 60-mile drive home, my rented car was rear-ended hard by some drunken kid in a huge old Chrysler, in which he then drove off before I got his name or plate number (I eventually tracked him down anyway, us both living in a small town and all). Fortunately, all we ended up with were sore necks, on top of the Who-induced tinnitus.
__________________
I love you, El_Kabong
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#25
10-27-2006, 08:06 PM
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Gotta say, on John's note, that my grandfather was a sax and clarinet player in Hollywood Big Bands, and played with Stan Kenton, Bing Crosby, etc. My grandmother told me, when I was a little music hound, Walkman pressed to ear, "You know, a lot of the guys in the band with your grandfather went deaf, and that wasn't even with this big amplification."
I wasn't listening then, though.
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#26
10-27-2006, 08:47 PM
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There was an awful warmup band before a Neil Young concert we went to several years ago. The generic 90s "alternative rock" band of the month. One so-so selling album and that's it type. Can't even remember who it was. Outdoor venue too. Most of Neil's fans just hung around outside the seating area waiting for them to finish. Bad music played louder doesn't work.
As for a non-rock concert, there was this Valentine's Day Sam Kinison concert (you read that right). He had two warmup acts that apparently were just 3rd rate wannabe-comic friends. One guy had the volume cranked way up and just hurt everybody's ears. We weren't expecting that. Tissue in ears and everything. Sam yelling wasn't as loud as this guy talking.
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#27
10-27-2006, 09:09 PM
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#28
10-27-2006, 09:10 PM
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Mine was My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult at Caine's Ballroom in Tulsa, OK. It was July 1997, I believe. This place was roughly the same size as the Metro in Chicago if I remember correctly and we were about 20 feet back from the stage a little to the right. It was so loud that my friend tried to tell me something during the show and even though he was screaming at the top of his lungs approximately one inch from my ear, I could hear nothing he was saying. I've been to a lot of shows and have experienced a lot of next-day hearing loss, but this one had me worried. I was muffled for FOUR DAYS after the show.
It was also the hottest concert I ever saw. When I saw the show, I was visiting my mom and when I got back home three days later, I pulled the shirt I was wearing out of my suitcase and it was still wet!
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#29
10-27-2006, 09:14 PM
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It's a toss up between Blue Oyster Cult at Winterland and Jeff Beck at San Diego State.
Come to think of it, I might have to give the edge to Jeff--I had earplugs, but the sheer sound pressure was just incredible.
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#30
10-27-2006, 11:09 PM
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I think it would have to have been Rush, at an outdoor show at Cal Expo Amphitheater, back in the late 80's.
Apparently their amps went to eleven.
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#31
10-27-2006, 11:33 PM
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When Bon Jovi played, the sound was great - loud, but very pleasant. Then Ratt came on. It was as if the board had been set for the headliner before - the soundman screwed up - and just said "aw hell, push em all to ten". It was the only concert I left early - I had a splitting headache. 
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#32
10-27-2006, 11:45 PM
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The Black Crowes at the Orpheum in Boston, 199-somethingorother. If I wasn't on acid at the time, it probably would have been really painful.
Second is Beck, at the same venue, whatever year "Midnite Vultures" came out. Totally sober. Ears still hurt. But 'Debra' was totally worth it.
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#33
10-28-2006, 12:02 AM
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Judas Priest seemed the loudest to me subjectively, but that was one of my first arena concerts and I wasn't really prepared for it. I've seen metallica a couple of times and they're pretty loud but I've got some mild hearing damage so it didn't seem that painful to me.
The loudest club band I've ever heard was one of my own. We had WAY more PA equipment than we needed but since we often played on bills with several other bands and it was hard to get attention and be memorable, we decided that even if we weren't always the best band on the stage we could at least make sure we were the loudest. That's part of the reason I have tinitus now.
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#34
10-28-2006, 12:17 AM
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Loudest ever? Possibly the Black Sabbath show in 1986 where I was standing about 6 feet in front of the p.a., which was inexplicably mounted on ground level. But I have to give first prize to Iron Maiden in 1985. Holy crap, that was loud. In a good way. Now the best sound I've heard for a major rock act was Rush. Seem 'em twice, in '91 ('92?) and '03, and both times they were simultaneously very loud and very clear. Don't know who they have running their p.a., but whoever it is has to be some kind of sonic genius.
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#38
10-28-2006, 08:35 AM
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Probably the band I used to mix, at the Bondi Lifesaver. It was a very docile audience and I just kept winding it up until they got moving. You could feel the bottom end churning in your guts and when the manager came over to tell me to turn it down he had to scream in my ear.
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#39
10-28-2006, 09:11 AM
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What, only one other person so far said Motorhead? We saw them at Bumbershoot in Seattle a few years back and even with cotton batting stuffed securely into both ears, I had ringing in my ears for several hours afterward. I saw people there with no ear protection and I honestly don't know how they did it. The band started playing a few seconds before I got the cotton stuffed in my ears, and for those few seconds, I was in actual physical pain.
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#40
10-28-2006, 09:13 AM
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By far it was the P-Funk All-Stars (about 1/3rd of Parliament Funkadelic feat Bernie Worrell) at The Wetlands. The Wetlands was a tiny, tiny bar with a tiny, tiny stage and 8 foot speakers in NYC.
I was deaf for a week. Seriously deaf. Had to go to the doctor deaf. But it was good.
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#41
10-28-2006, 10:52 AM
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#42
10-28-2006, 11:06 AM
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Hm. I'm guessing Metallica, playing in Anchorage in the early 90s. I was young enough to go to the concert with my younger brother, and old enough to slip a pair of earplugs into my jeans pocket. It was loud, even with the earplugs in.
There were other various arena concerts that were loud--for some reason, I went to a Ted Nugent concert at the PNE in the late 70s. I don't know why I went; I'm not a Nugent fan now nor was I really then. (That was a strange experience--in the midst of the pot-smoking Nugent fans, there was a little old lady. A little old lady. Wearing a coat. Using a cane. Making her way very slowly to her seat. Going to the concert.) I love music too much to risk ultra-loud concerts again. Next time I go to an arena concert, the earplugs are coming with me once more.
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#43
10-28-2006, 11:08 AM
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#44
10-28-2006, 11:12 AM
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#45
10-28-2006, 11:13 AM
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#46
10-28-2006, 11:15 AM
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#47
10-28-2006, 12:24 PM
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Van Halen in the late 1970's.
When I was a student, I got a job with a production company as a spotlight operator for our biggest city venue. I got to run spotlights for a bunch of bands of that era, including Van Halen and Heart. The thing is, we had to hear the lighting director, and we had open style headphones that didn't block ambient noise. So they'd turn up the volume high enough that we could hear the lighting director over live Van Halen. It was horrible. I remember coming out of that concert and all I could hear was a loud ringing in my ears. A friend was talking to me, and I could barely make out what he was saying. Today I have Tinnitus, and my last hearing test showed that my highs start to roll off at 8900 hz. Thanks for the cheap headphones, production company.
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#49
10-28-2006, 12:31 PM
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I've heard (and been in) a lot of loud bands in my time, but probably the loudest show I've ever been to was Juicifer in a medium-to-large sized club. They had amps stacked to the ceiling. It sucked. Bascially, you couldn't even hear the drums any more. The band just had this big roar-making machine that they could turn on or off. The sound guys had no chance to help. They were going for a My Bloody Valentine-type wall of sound in a trash-rock, Royal Trux kind of context, but it turned out to have all of the musicality of a high-performance jet engine. In short, I'm not too old, it was too loud.
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#50
10-28-2006, 01:13 PM
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