Please note: This is going to be a “music update,” and may cause discomfort and irritability in some patients and, more rarely, apoplexy. Proceed with all due caution.
I’m sure we’ve covered this subject before, but it’s been a while, so I’m going to do it again… I was wondering, what are the loudest concerts you’ve ever attended?
I’ve been lucky enough to see a lot of bands play live during my ridiculous life, and plenty of them were LOUD. Including the usual suspects: Motorhead, Ramones, Metallica, AC/DC, etc., but three shows stand out in my mind as the loudest of the loud.
The first was Cheap Trick, at the old Charleston Civic Center (just a big cinderblock room), in 1979 or so. Budokan had just been released, and hadn’t yet exploded, so the place was half-empty, or half-full, depending on your point of view.
And sweet sainted mother of Kelly Bluebook, was that shit loud! It felt like we were literally inside a jet engine. There was no way to discern one song from another, it was just one gigantic roar.
Rick Nielsen, the guitarist with the Gomer hat, had a stepladder onstage, and kept dropping guitars down it. As it hit each step, there’d be a soul-shaking THUD! Just for the sake of it, I guess.
The whole thing was an extreme exercise in excess, and I can’t really say I enjoyed it. Oh, I remember it… I remember it real good. But it was too much. My ears rang for a week, and that’s not hyperbole. For a full week I heard mosquitoes and dog whistles in both ears, and I’m not really a fan of it.
I saw Cheap Trick again, a few years later, and they were just as loud. Apparently that’s one of their things? But the second time wasn’t as bad, because I was mentally prepared. That first go-round almost took my head clean off.
Also shockingly loud: King’s X. Remember them? I never liked ’em, but they were opening for someone at the Omni in Atlanta. Possibly AC/DC? And they were so over-the-top it felt like my central nervous system was about to shut down.
Yeah, it’s bad enough when something is overly loud, and you actually like the music being played… But King’s X was excruciating. Every song felt like it lasted for two hours. When the audience started stomping for an encore, I screamed, “Noooo! Please God, nooooooo!!” But, of course, nobody could hear me, because every eardrum within a city block had been destroyed.
And the third show was Dinosaur Jr. at the Cotton Club in Atlanta. Again, every song sounded exactly the same: like holding a stethoscope to a blender full of rocks.
What’s the point of so much volume? I love Dinosaur Jr., but that show was outrageous. It was a tiny club, and I think they had stadium amps in there. I’m unclear on it. All I know is, I nearly had a seizure.
I’ve been to hundreds of shows, almost all them pre-1996 (when our first kid came along), and those are the three that stick out in my mind as the loudest. What about you? Do you have anything on this one? Use the comments link below.
And I’ll be back at ya tomorrow.
See you then!
Now playing in the bunker
Buy your $10 Miscommunication Shirt!
AWG – I don’t want to laugh but at this moment I have tears welling up in my eyes. All I can picture is the stunned look of combined amazement, terror, and whoops you had on your face about 1/10 of a second after you dropped the hammer. I’m sorry you still have headaches from it and I’m glad you’re okay (more or less), now excuse me while I go catch my breath.
Would you believe Rick Nelson?
I used to go to Oldies Revival shows with my folks, and saw Rick Nelson about a year before he died. He had a guitaist in his back-up band at the time who had the amps cranked up way out of proportion to the rest of the band and the venue being played. And the guy took solo after solo. He would play a familiar solo based on the one from the record, say, “Hello Mary, Lou,” and then carry on an extended jam before Nelson would get back to the mike and finish the verses. Every. Fucking. Song. My ears roared for days afterward.
After another Oldies show I went to, Del Shannon’s jangly Stratocaster (I think) rang in my ears for a couple days afterward, but it was nowhere near as bad as the Rick Nelson show…
Music updates are the BEST !!!
Jeff,
Don’t know if you saw this yesterday or not (although I haven’t seen any response) but I am gonna try one more time:
Dd you get my email about my groggy Miscommunication Shirt’ XXL purchase that I would like to upgrade to a XXXL to help conceal my girlish figure? Please help !!!
Also, how about those Yankees ??!!!???
Thanks !!
I got a bad case of the fucking apoplexy.
Happy Anniversary Tammie!
Me three. I saw Dinosaur Jr a couple of years ago on their first reunion tour, and they played as loud as you describe. Also notable: The once-skinny J Mascis is pear-shaped now.
Also crazy-loud: a 1981 Black Sabbath show (with Ronnie James Dio singing).
Strangely enough, I have seen the Cheap Tricks play a few times now, and they have not been notably loud on any of these occasions.
I’m from the South!
Saw The Who twice in the early 70’s during their “lets destroy all of our instruments” era.Also Jimi Hendrix in front of 24 Marshall amps.Pretty loud stuff.
If you wanna hear LOUD me and the boys are playing the opening of a Dollar General Store in Ann Arbor this weekend, so if you’re in the neighborhood, stop by and say hi!
Hey stop with the YouTube links for at least a week! I’m in Turkey and it’s banned! This is all I see:
Ankara 1. Sulh Ceza Mahkemesi’nin, 05.05.2008 tarih ve 2008/402 nolu KORUMA TEDB?R? kapsam?nda bu internet sitesi (youtube.com) hakk?nda verdi?i karar Telekomünikasyon ?leti?im Ba?kanl???’nca uygulanmaktad?r.
(The decision no 2008/402 dated 05.05.2008, which is given about this web site (youtube.com) within the context of protection measure, of Ankara 1. Sulh Ceza Mahkemesi has been implemented by “Telekomünikasyon ?leti?im Ba?kanl???”.)
http://www.tib.gov.tr | http://www.ihbarweb.org.tr
Stoopid Turkey.
Rainbow with Dio on vocals was stuper loud.
I started playing in garage bands at 14 and played for a living later on. My ears don’t work so good now…
Zeppelin at the Charleston Civic Center about 1970 or so…incredibly loud. Emerson, Lake and Palmer a few years later may have been the loudest, but Black Oak Arkansas inside the Parkersburg High Fieldhouse rattled my friggin teeth.
I’m at the age where my hearing is starting to fade. No doubt the concert I attended in Dayton, Oh at Hara Arena in 1990 featuring Stevie Ray Vaughn and Jeff Beck might have something to do with the decline. The 5000 capacity arena is acoustically similar to a tin can. My ears are ringing now just thinking about it.
Would somebody please turn down that music?!
WHAT?? WHAT DID YOU SAY????
The dB’s, from New York by way of Winston Salem. I’ve seen a thousand concerts and nothing comes close in terms of sheer volume. It’s not even heavy metal, they’re more southern pop like Pylon, Love Tractor, REM, etc.
Permanent damage, the doctors said.
Loudest shows that stand out in my mind…
Cheap Trick – Speed Street Festival in downtown Charlotte 2007 (I told my date about your saying “Louder than Cheap Trick”. After seeing them, she agreed whole heartedly.)
Enuf Z’Nuff – Baity’s in Winston-Salem (I knew we were in trouble when they had a wall of Marshall stacks across the entire stage. Remember how small that place was, Jeff? Thank Allah that I had ear plugs, which I wear to every show.)
Motorhead – Fillmore in Charlotte 9/11/09 (We were directly behind the soundboard and noticed a digital db meter. I remember seeing 112 at one point. Great show!)
The Dropkick Murphys at the House of Blues a couple of years ago left me stunned and staggered. TW saw an ad for the show and surmised we’d be going to see a nice Irish rock band. When we arrived, I figured that something wasn’t consistent with that expectation when we saw the line of “patrons” sporting a variety of colors in their Mohawks and other assorted hairstyles, with their bodies adorned with shrapnel fashion accessories (this was at Downtown Disney–not somewhere you’d normally see such a crowd).
But we decided to go ahead and see what the attraction was, and I’ve gotta say that I enjoyed the music. Hell, I even bought a t-shirt.
Thank God they served copious amounts of Guinness….
Nazareth has to be the loudest show I have ever experienced. Motorhead takes second. I was on the left side of the stage for Alice Cooper back in the old Toledo Sports Arena in the 70’s. I actually have left ear hearing damage from being in front of the speakers. I plug my ears if I go near the stage these days. I probably lost most of my hearing running punch presses without hearing protection in my 20’s though.
My first concert was AC/DC at the old Spectrum in Philly, about 1988. Fucked my ears up for several days afterward.
RNK- you should have seen the look on my friend’s face (not Jeff, not Bill from WV) , who talked me into it and who had to catch the third degree from my fake Dad about the events that unfolded. Dad yelled to me “What the fuck was that?” and I replied “Nothing” as a pool of blood was streaming unknowingly down my face. I lock my guns up now, thinking my crazy kids could repeat the same thing.
I really don’t get why bands have the damn sound cranked up so high, to the point where the sound is distorted almost beyond recognition, and it causes actual physical damage.
It is as if you were to go to a movie, and they had the screen so bright that you couldn’t even distinguish the details of the picture anymore. Not only that, but you are left with spots before your eyes that never go away. “Hey, I lost 15% of my eyesight when I saw Attack of the Clones, but it was so worth it!”
Don’t be ashamed to where the little yellow earplugs folks. I wish I had.
Pantera @ the Johnstown War Memorial. By far, the loudest ever.
Hands down Butthole Surfers at the Eagle Club (?) in Milwaukee circa 1996. Holy Jeebus. So incredibly loud that, out of the main hall in the can, with earplugs in, I couldn’t hear myself shout. Amazingly noisy (with a kick-ass Reverend Horton Heat opener to boot!).
Who loves you? That’s right, it’s me.
I asked my husband Jeff’s question and he reported that the loudest concert he ever attended was Rollins Band. Specifically his eyes glazed all over and he said, “Yeeeeah, Rollins was pretty loud, screaming in my face.” And I just assumed he meant Henry Rollins not, you know, Sonny Rollins.
Which reminds me, to the person who said shorts are a bad outfit to perform in, care to tell that to ol’ no-neck Henry? 😉
I’ve been to fewer concerts than has Jeff turned down buffets. I saw a Russian band called Gorky Park right after the Wiedervereinegung.
I did not get tintinabulations from this event. Neither did I kiss my date. I should have, but she kept talking about her boyfriend. Why did you take the date, love?
The Wall had fallen, Reagan had broken the back of USSR. Putin could not stop Poland’s Missile shield. Life was looking great.
I have nothing funny today. That is Jeff’s job. He posted music, so I posted boring History. The Report is a rapport.
GS
Ognir is right, acoustics makes all the difference. My loudest show was the Psychedelic Furs. I don’t know that it was all that loud in absolute dBA terms, but the acoustics of the place were so bad that I couldn’t even tell if I liked the music or not – it just sounded like high-frequency NOISE at a very high volume level. This was in the mid-90s at GWU in DC. The show was supposed to have been at the Lissner Auditorium but they moved it, for some reason, to a basketball gym.
Also pretty loud: Emerson, Lake and Palmer during the winter of 1976-77; Philip Glass group, 1980-ish; Oregon at Blues Alley (tiny nightclub) about 10 years ago.
Yes, absolutely wear the earplugs. I even wear them whenever I get on an airplane. I like the foam ones, E-A-R or similar. Found a funny-named brand a couple of weeks ago: “Hearos”. I bought them because they had the highest attenuation number of all the the foam style ones on the pegboard at the Walgreen’s at Kennedy and West Shore in Tampa that day.
AWG, “hitting a bullet with a hammer” immediately made me think of Bugs Bunny in the bomb factory. As the bombs rolled down the assembly line, he’d hit each one with a hammer while flinching, then when it didn’t blow up he’d write DUD on it.
Ed – I kinda think they crank it so loud because they are not that good live.
Loudest (annoying) concert I was at was many years ago at Van Halen, sat in a section where girls were screaming and screaming. VH wasn’t loud enough to cover their annoying backstage mating calls.
Aerosmith and Guns and Roses in St Louis it was so loud it was distorted at times. Much louder than the “Monsters of Rock” tour in KC.
I just saw Cheap Trick a few weeks ago. They still rock. Poison and Def Leppard were pretty good too.
Does TSO count? Because shit, they’re LOUD.
If not, then probably ‘Animal Logic’ back at the Mystic Den in 1983. They didn’t suck, and a night out at the bar meant ringing ears, a good drunk, and quite possibly a new boyfrriend. YeeHAW!
TSO gets my vote, though I’ve seen em’ twice, first time was a great sounding “volume”, while the second was, um, “painful”.
KISS, the loudest I’ve heard, in the late 70’s. I think I heard them, I don’t remember now. I was too stoned. I think.
just before I go…
I was technically at ‘Deep Purple’ in 1969 in Dundee the night they got banned from ever playing Dundee ever again for being too loud. I was in my mum’s womb and she was there. I swear I still get freaked out when I hear a Hammond organ. Thanks to John Lord for that phobia!
The loudest was probably Sly & The Family Stone at the University of Puget Sound fieldhouse in Tacoma, WA, in 1970. In dB measured at the stage, Hendrix and Blue Cheer (in other venues) were undoubtedly louder, but oh my Lord, the horrible acoustics of that place! The sound waves would hit all four wooden walls and meet back in the middle.
Mr. Stewart was mad with drug, and continued to signal the sound dog to turn up the amps. “Everybody is a Star” is a beautiful anthem, and sweetly sung and played on the album, but in person, with the amps pegged in every dB range is was much more like “Everybody is Deaf”.
Several years later, I saw Mose Allison at The Banque (or the Bank) in Seattle. Heard every ripple of every note played and sung. Sweetest sound I ever heard. Mose was not mad with drug, and used all 88 keys and threw in a couple extra for glory.
jtb
I was at that Cheap Trick concert, too! We stood over on the left hand side (Rick Nielson’s side), but I don’t remember it being that much louder than the average Charleston show at the time. I stood right in front of the floor mounted speaker cabinets during a Kiss concert once, and the rumbling force made me so sick to my stomach that I had to go to the lobby for a few minutes to recover or I was going to “send my Burger King dinner back to the kitchen,” so to speak.
A few ridiculously loud shows come to mind…
Motorhead – Stanley Theater, Pittsburgh (The “Another Perfect Day” Tour)
Big Black – Stache’s – Columbus. Kee-rist, that was loud…
Raw Power – Mr. Brown’s – Columbus. I don’t think I ever really figured out what song they played at any given point in the show – my ears were alternately ringing/shutting down after the first song
The last time I saw Black Sabbath (with Ozzy) was when they played on the “Black and Blue” tour with BOC. Their sound was shit. It was all volume, all sludge bottom-end. You couldn’t tell what the fuck they were playing. All I could make out was Ozzy’s “araaaaagh!” sound (I guess he was saying the word “alright”) as he marched back and forth to ends of the stage waving his stupid fucking peace signs at the crowd.
Metalica at the Arena In Pitt. LOUD. However the loudest thing any of you motherfuckers ever will hear is 2 top fuel dragsters . Shakes your eyeballs in your head. They set off car alarms in the parking lot 200 yards away and break out the light bulbs at the finish line. No shit. Nothing compares as far as loud goes.
I also would single out Kiss w/Winger & Slaughter (Hot in the Shade Tour 1990), I was right beside the speakers on the fence in front of Gene and my ears rang for four days.
Other notables include Motley Crue (1990) and Pantera (1992)
I’ve been to a LOT of concerts and I also believe that sound quality plays an important role. In the last year or so I’ve seen NIN and Tool twice each and they were loud but also crystal clear and clean. Coincidentaly, both bands are known for going the extra mile to make their albums and concerts sound good. I hope more bands adopt the trend…of course it means you have to be able to correctly play your own music in a live setting…(sadly) not something that every band can do.
@AWG, AIC – “Black Gives Way to Blue” was officially released in North America yesterday.
Leonard Cohen a couple of months ago was pretty loud. He may be old, but he rocks like a bastard. Will probably die like a jellyfish too. Other than that the usual suspects – Metallica, Megadeth etc
Loudest thing I’ve ever heard was 6 Harrier jumpjets doing a VTOL display. Ouch.
@ Son Of Sam, I agree about the Top Fuel Dragsters. A mind bending experience all around, for sure. The 120db noise is one thing but seeing them travel from here to there (1320 ft) in under four seconds really messes with a persons reality frame of reference.
Actually, I once discussed my theory that rock music was being killed by short pants with “ol’ no-neck Henry” (as described by Gretchen). He had just finished his set during one of the last tours done by Black Flag wearing running shorts (no shirt and no shoes). That’s what he used to wear at all of their performances at the time, so he could show -off all of his tattoos, I suppose. He got a laugh out of it. Henry is actually a pretty laid-back and friendly fellow. I reckon he gets a lot of his inner aggression out on-stage, sorta the same way Stevie Wonder does.
Hey Shiny,a little cross blog chatter,are you an opponent or proponent of colon cleansing ?Just curious.
Lee Harvey Ramone: I once watched Rollins’ TV show when he had on Iggy Pop and he acted like a giggly preteen girl at a Jonas Brothers concert. After that show (and others) I came to the conclusion that Rollins is actually a big nerd under all those muscles. Am I right or completely out of my gourd? Still, I wouldn’t want to critique his sartorial choices just in case he’s in the mood to, you know, break me in half over his kneecap as a means to get out his inner aggression.
Gretchen….and you DEFINITELY don’t want to piss off Stevie Wonder!
Lee: Are you saying Stevie Wonder is sensitive about his clothing choices too? Hmmm, wouldn’t have thought that. 😉 I dunno, it’s probably incredibly gauche to say it, but I think I could allude Stevie Wonder in a small room.
I mean “elude”. Crap!
Thanks Kevindust- Went out on my lunch and picked that up.
Gretchen, in 1981 I saw Rollins pick up a 200 pound guy by his hair for calling him a motherfucker on stage, with one hand. I think he is the real deal. Maybe not as much nowadays, though.
On IPOD right now- “When the Levee Breaks”- Led Zep
Kevindust I guess you’ve been there? Norwalk?
I’ve been to Vegas Gainesville Columbus and Norwalk. Vegas is all cement on both sides and the sound is incredible. You can see the concussion waves in the air.
“Loudness does not equal greatness”
@ Pagan-It does in my bed.
cc, There is hope for me yet!