When did live gigs get ear-pearcingly loud?

[Colonel_Claypoo]

well, i don't know how loud live music was before the millenium.
i think it has always been loud, especially with rock&metal. however, can anyone of the old cats here tell me if gigs from the 60's and 70's were as loud or even louder? if i'm correct, PA support wasn't the standard back then.
the thing is that i just have an issue with loud live music.
evey gig i play or attend, the music is so loud that the sound suffers from it. i can only put up with this volume by wearing hearing protection but this alters the sound a bit. i just son't go to concerts that often anymore because i'm primarily concerned with good sound even more so then a good show.

what do you think?

wouldn't live music be more enjoyable if it wasn't so damn loud?

[sonic assassin]

and if the sub bass werent so high. ive been saying this for years. 20 year olds shouldnt be complaining about volume. when a musician says its too loud.. its too F-in' loud

[J. Crawford]

Since I last saw Creed... and Rush... and Incubus.

[Lo-E]

I must agree. I always play with hearing protection (even though I try not to play that loud), and there are times when it's too loud even with the plugs in.
I prefer not to play with those folks again.
There have always been volume-hounds out there, but I think the volume of small club shows has gotten substantially louder in the past ten years or so... or maybe I've just gotten ten years older... and deafer...

[LongHairFreak]

I recall back in the '70s, KISS & Ted Nugent both were pretty freakin' loud. But in the Beatles U.S. beginnings, the audience easily reached higher decibles. So I'm thinking loud got louder somewhere between 1964 & 1975.

[xgator4u]

Yeah, I think you will find a direct correlation to electric amplification advances in technology, and the volume at concerts. Basically a " well mine goes to 11" kind of thing. Bands have always played as loud as they could live. Before amplification it was what it was, an orchestra for example. Then the early amps. were generating a massive what? 30 watts? Then as bands needed, and requested more, the amplifiers got more powerful and effective.

In my personal opinion, shows now as a general rule are not as loud as they were in the late 70's and the 80's. THAT was out of control.

[overdrivethree]

I agree, especially re: sub bass frequencies. I remember seeing the Police and Elvis Costello, and the bass drum levels HURT. It was like you could feel it in your eye sockets and in your chest. Too painful to enjoy.

[KrisH]

Grand Funk Railroad -- the "loudest band in the world".

We used to use use extensive PA support in the 70s -- walls of Voice of the Theater cabinets on each side, several thousand watts, everything mic'ed. Even in the smaller clubs we played. And still people stood right in front of the cabs!

[tat2jim]

Loudest Club Bands i ever saw/heard back in the day were The Plasmatics and Twisted Sister. My ears rang for days. There were relatively no house support back then(late 70s/80s). The band i played in rented a PA w/soundman. We played a gig on Long Island and we were SO LOUD, Billy Joel walked in, stayed a few minutes and then left. I think his ears were bleeding.

[mccartneyman]

TDTLA -- The Date That Loud Arrived -- for me was 1971. That's when I started playing in a band that had three horns, ala Chicago, a guitarist with a Twin Reverb that was miked and a an organist who had a homemade twin Leslie speaker powered by a 200 watt Crown amplifier -- and he miked that, too! I went from having my Standel bass amp on 3 to having it on 7 and still couldn't keep up. Previously, all my band had small amps and small PAs. When PAs became bigger and more sophisticated, stage volume started to come up. Drummers started to play louder to get over the amps. Amps turned up to get over the drums. Bassists got bigger amps to get over the guitars and the drums. Drums were miked. Amps were miked. Everyone went crazy, and I don't think things have improved in the past 40 years.

I play in a church band where I have to battle every week with three guitarists and a drummer who don't know how to play at a reasonable volume. They range in age from 15 to 51, so I can't blame it on youth or inexperience. I have a Shuttle 6.0 with two 112 cabs, and there is no reason I should have to run a 600 watt amp with the volumes at 1 o'clock to be heard over guitars in a church that seats 400 -- and which has a state of the art sound system. Everything is miked or taken direct. The SPL on stage kills -- i have to wear earplugs or run the risk of the snare blowing out my right ear. People in the congregation complain about the volume, but the guitars will not turn down. If I turn down, I can't hear my amp if I get more than two feet away from it. We've talked about it as a group and the guitarists swear they will play softer, but that last for one rehearsal. The drummers, apparently, are physically incapable of not hitting the drums as hard as they can. Very frustrating. I hear it in the clubs, too. Until everyone realizes that crushing volume and being able to physically feel the kick drum in your chest is NOT necessary to have a pleasing sound, it will never get better.

[bandl]

I've been going to shows since 1983 when I first saw Aerosmith. To this day, the loudest show I have seen was The Jeff Healy Band at a club in 1991, where they had a huge house system.
They were so loud, it literally hurt and we had to leave because we could not enjoy the music. And we weren't even near the stage! (From the parking lot it sounded fantastic). I'm glad we got the tickets for free.

[DWBass]

Originally Posted by sonic assassin

When a musician says its too loud.. its too F-in' loud

I am in full agreement with this!

[mccartneyman]

I have to add to my earlier statement that the first time I heard another band that was excruciatingly loud, it was the Bob Seeger System at a small hippie club in Pittsburgh called SMAP (Sunshine, Music, America, Peace) in probably 1969. When Seeger's B3 player hit the Leslie, it felt like my head was going around with the horn. I saw Rush at an outdoor gig last year and it was too loud, even with earplugs. The last band I heard that I thought played at reasonable volume was the Decemberists, in a theater that seated about 2000. Paul McCartney at FedEx field in August was on the verge of being too loud (aboput 50 rows from the front), but the sound was pristine.

[sobie18]

Sometimes I would like to do a club gig at a fairly medium level where there were tables on the dance floor, and everybody that came to the show was there to LISTEN. Then, you wouldn't need to blast everybody out of their ears.

Or maybe a concert venue where everybody had their own set of headphones and the ability to adjust their own mix of the band and set their own volume level.

Yeah, sure it's pure fantasy-thinking but would be kinda cool otherwise.

[duff beer]

It's not just the live gigs...I auditioned for a band and it went well, but they were way too loud, however, I didn't say anything at the time. The guitarist I had been in contact called me shortly after the audition to invite me to join the band. I said I liked them and their music but it was too loud for me, but if they could consider turning down at rehearsal then maybe it could work.

At the next rehearsal they were still too loud and I asked them if they could turn down a bit. They did, but it crept back up within a few songs. I knew it was a losing battle and decided right then that I would not be back. There is no reason my ears should hurt from a rehearsal in a basement. As a reference, my Hartke LH500 could barely be heard with the volume at 8...

I sent them an email a day later declining their invitation to join.

[jkramer5]

Ask Pete Townsend this question. his answer for the last 35 years has been, ..... "WHAT?"

[MEKer]

I find that, all too often, sound guys and their bands pay little attention to the acoustics of a venue . I have heard "loud", but the last few years, it has gotten ridiculous to where it is simply painful. Example: The tour early this year by Black Label Society and the 2 opening acts was just stupid. I know the audience in the Nat Guard Armory went home with some permanent ear damage. The volume may have been appropriate for an outdoor stadium, but this level was now in a concrete wall/floor frickin armory. BTW--could not even hear the bass it was so buried, yet it was pegged volume thru 4 Ampeg 8x10's. Now that's loud and IMO frickin' stupid.

[CDweller]

I have hated loud since playing in my first hard rock band in '74. I prefer to mike everything through the pa these days, and just monitor the sound at lower levels on stage.

When I go to jams, I turn down my bass to barely audible when hacks turn up. Maybe they'll get the hint someday, but I doubt it!

[Ric5]

When did live gigs get ear-pearcingly loud?

When they invented Marshall amps.

[addylewis]

Originally Posted by Ric5

When did live gigs get ear-pearcingly loud?

When they invented Marshall amps.

I reckon it was when heavy rock was born...those damn drummers hitting the kit so damn hard you can't hear yourself under it...