I went to one show at a club in Shibuya last year because my boss’s old band was performing. It was a collection of bands that had been bad-ass bikers and heavy-metal psychos 25 years ago, but were now office workers, truck drivers, husbands and fathers (my boss married the bass player in his band and is now president of an ad agency), so it was kind of a last grasp at old glory (about 1am, there was a live sex show with two performers who definitely weren’t middle-aged, so it was an interesting time for all). Anyway, the club was more about wild attitude than quality music, so the amps alternated between two settings: 11 and feedback. It’s more than a year later, and I still get an occasional static-like buzzing in my right ear.
Jason and the Scorchers. Every time. I always stuffed my ears with cotton and was still deaf for two days afterward.
Though I went to a Flaming Lips show a couple of months ago that was surprisingly (nay, painfully) loud.
Fugazi.
It was in the SUNY Binghamton gym around '92. Retardedly over loud. My ears were ringing for days. There was no where to stand to get away from it.
Another fan/victim of the Ramones.
1977 at the Red Lion in Champaign IL, as a high schooler visiting my older sisters in college. Led me to suspect that I was going to enjoy this college life…
Hey spoke- - good to see another Scorchers fan. But when I used to see them - quite frequently in the early 80s, they were never eardrum busting loud. When and where did they blast you?
I’ve had the ringing-in-my-ears-for-two-days phenomenon three times, but only once was it the band’s fault, and I can’t remember its name.
However, the other two times were due to overly-enthusiastic concert-goers at a standing-room-only show shouting directly into my ear. One was Dashboard Confessional, so in that sort of participatory show it’s understandable (although it does make the normally-non-singing people lose their inhibitions and release some truly bad singing, of which I’m guilty of too at their shows.) But the other one was Flickerstick: my left ear hurt for two days and it wasn’t even that great a concert. It certainly wasn’t participatory as they played their songs nothing like the album version (and weren’t even good enough musicians to make that interesting.)
That’s the amazing thing: I’ve seen Fugazi at the 9:30 Club. Catherine Wheel managed to out-bash my eardrums. It’s absurd for a band like C.W. to be louder than the local punk heroes.
Many times. The Uptown Lounge in Athens, Ga. was the usual place, but also at the Roxy in Atlanta, and more recently at a reunion show at Smith’s Olde Bar in Atlanta. I walked away temporarily deaf from every show except when they performed at festivals (where they presumably had to keep the volume down in deference to acts on other stages).
Sugar would be my second loudest, after the Sonic Youth show mentioned above. The crazy thing about Bob Mould is that I heard him soundchecking with the PA off. It was insane how much volume was coming off his amp itself, before it was even piped through the mains. :eek:
Maybe Blue Cheer was the loudest band I heard in an auditorium. But I’ve heard most of my music in smaller venues.
In 1968, the Mothers, Canned Heat & Country Joe and the Fish played Houston’s Catacombs, preceded by several local stalwarts. The only remaining seat was on row 1. For a while, I was jammed against an amp. As people left, I “migrated” to a better part of the row. Still think it was worth it.
In the 70’s, Ted Nugent played in a club where I waitressed. For two nights. NOT worth it.
Led Zeppelin, early 70’s Memorial Coliseum in Portland, great show, walked out almost totally deaf, but smiling.
The loudest ever was, oddly enough, Procol Harum. They were so painfully loud that I actually had to leave the theater. About half the audience was standing in the lobby. I suspect they were eventually told to turn down, but by that time I was gone. This was at the old Paramount Theater in downtown Portland.
Skinny Puppy for their VIVIsect VI tour in '86. I saw them at a small club and it was painful. I started wearing earplugs to concerts due to that experience. The tinitus that seems to have become apparent from that night still bothers me. The pain was not helped by films of animal experimentation being shown.
Catherine Wheel could also be up there, but I was wearing earplugs for just such an occasion.
I think it must be something about industrial groups. Ministry and (this is 1989) Nine Ince Nails were both stupidly loud.
Cream, 1968, Baltimore Civic Center. I was up high and near the back wall. I remember thinking at the time how loud it must have been for Clapton and Bruce standing in front of those stacks of speakers. I saw Led Zeppelin open for The Who, probably the following year, at Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, MD. This is an amphitheater, so I guess the sound could spread out a bit. Neither band seemed as loud as my memory of Cream. I also saw Led Zep at the Baltimore Civic Center on the tour for the fourth album, again, it didn’t seem as loud as my memory of Cream.
This results in what we used to call (back in my PA running days) as the kick drum and vocals mix. In a smallish venue everything else is already too loud so all you send though the PA is the kick drum and vocals. That’s not really an option in a bigger venue so the whole mix gets louder to balance with the backline.
Having seen hundreds of bands from behind the desk I’d say 80% were too loud for their own good (the reason you can’t hear the monitors old chap is that you’ve you’ve got a Marshall 4 by 12 set to 11 six feet behind you). Nearly every gig I’ve gone to as a punter has been too loud.
The loudest band I’ve *heard * has to be The Who sometime in the 70s they played a historically loud gig at the Charlton Athletic football ground. My school was five miles away and we could hear the songs from there.
This:
from here
For me, it was Alice Cooper at the Salem, OR Armory, back in the early 90’s.
This was mostly due to the venue, I think. It is an old concrete hall/bunker with zero acoustic damping. Just pure floor/wall/ceiling resonance-loving concrete. The concert felt like I had my head in a paint shaker.
Ahhh, then I guess technically the loudest band I’ve ever heard was the Guess Who playing at Sarasota in the late 80s at the waterfront. I was over a mile away and while I couldn’t hear it very well I could tell what song they were playing from the bassline.
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, 1970, Cleveland Public Auditorium.
I don’t know how loud it was in the back, but we were in the third row, way over to the side, and hence right in front of the speakers (which were about 2 stories tall). My ears rang for days.
They were also just about the worst live band I’ve ever seen. If they’d never met each other before the night of the concert, they could hardly have been worse. They did manage to pull off a smokin’ version of “Southern Man,” though.
For a band supposedly assembled for, and around, the members’ facility with vocal harmony, they are the worst live singing group I’ve ever heard.
Word. I saw them at the Baltimore Civic Center in 1970. They were stoned, they were loud, and the vocals sucked. I felt gypped.
Doesn’t surprise me. I saw West/Bruce/Laing in concert at the Orpheum in Boston in 1972. I took the T home, and it was the quietest subway trip I have ever had. I only knew the train was coming when I saw everyone starting to move to the front of the platform.
The worst part is that West and Laing were just going through the motions; you could tell that they just were going to do the minimum for a paycheck. Jack Bruce was the complete professional, though.