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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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…
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.
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. :eek: I’ve been to a lot of concerts in my almost-fifty years and nobody else came close.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The '98 Bob show I claimed as my loudest was at The Fillmore, but I did see him with Sugar at The Warfield in '92, which was my second loudest concert.
