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Pink Floyd had the most perfect sound levels, clarity, and pure quadraphonic bliss I've ever experienced at a concert. It was loud when it had to be, but never less than crytal clear, even in huge venues with crappy acoustics. If you have multiple speaker groups strategically placed around a large hall, crushing volume isn't necessary. Obviously, few bands can afford that kind of rig, but I always thought a few speakers at the back or sides of s medium size hall would work well.
buldog5151bass
Kibble, milkbones, and P Basses. And redheads.
Absolutely, I get you! Great post, too, got a good laugh out of it.
Especially at the ticket prices!
I think Cerwin Vega had a slogan, Loud is beautiful, if it's clean. It seems 'clean' is a forgotten concept.
Ahhh, that famous line from Deep Purple on their Made in Japan album!
Speaking of Deep Purple, I know their reputation as being one of the loudest bands ever (and they were one time THE loudest band ever, according to Guinness Book of World Records, IIRC). But I saw them a couple of years ago in Laughlin, NV, and the sound was fantastic. Great mix and a perfect volume level, didn't even need my ear plugs.
I'd bet large sums of money that he thought he was rock and roll enough to handle it. He was wrong. I have a friend who's a very good bassist. I heard him enough to have warned him several times over the years to wear protection. He didn't. He very suddenly developed severe tinnitus and hyperacusis. Wrecked his music life, which essentially was his life. He can longer go out to SEE live music, even with plugs. Two guys with acoustics and small PA is too much now. He can now play, but only with an elaborate, sound-isolating in ear setup he developed. Beware.
Proof positive that you cannot legislate common sense. Its a well known proven fact. Much like smoking. As I put out my Marlboro.
So thats where the saying originated, damn thats one of the few DP albums Ive never owned or I would have heard it already. I learned something today, thanks Dude.
I saw them in 94 in a football stadium with an Exhibition going on all around and quite honestly once I took my seat I felt as I could easily be listening to a CD, it was that clear. Loud enough to drown out the surrounding events and 100% audible. Greatest live experience of my life.
That was from Made In Japan.
(Oops - I posted before reading the full thread!)
Oh dear, have you been living under a rock recently? They did chatter as much, like these days, but these daysnot at all between each other but on their cell phones, either through texting or actually tries to get heard over the phones. And I remember a David Lindley/Jackson Browne concert recently at a club, and every nerd chatting "this album was made on backup tapes for SRV album.." and anoraking and nerd speaking all over it. They had to be hushed FROM the artists on the stage, not by neighboring audience people.
Here's Steve Howe angrily hushing audience members, RECENTLY :
No joke. That's the reason why you have to play loud, and acoustic guitar isn't one of them. He's not Ed Sheeran you know. And, of course, we should not talk about Keith Jarrett how he reacts. Don't go there!
You just have to reach them at the back of the festivals, anything to make them stop throwing frisbees, like ..."Hey, over here...!". Pink Floyd did it with lights, Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull with over-the-top Spinal Tap on stage antics, you name it. Germanys Rammstein had their ways of "wowing" the audience, both with loudness and pyrotechnics I can assure you.
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I do remember a gig with David Lee Roth, Steve Vai on gtrd, when it gradually turned loud. As he had his van Halen hit "Jump" as the encore the stadium shook at the first intro bass note so much that my eyesight got blurred, I couldn't see the stage clearly. I guess some had to use - instead of earplugs - kidney belts instead to stop the intestants to move around. There were no warnings on the tix, and no one sold them at the stands outside as they did with earplugs. I have never been to a concert that is so loud that my EYESIGHT has gone to s**t... but this one did, for a moment at least. I bet they had to refurbish the whole foundation of the venue afterwards, as the plaster tended to fall down from the roofs and walls...
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Yes me too. Back in the 70s. The sole and only reason was that they owned their own PA system, not hiring and doing the "PA-du-jour" thing. One of the things that has made modern PA sound better (considerably) is the frequent use of IEM to the vocalist. Isolating all sounds on stage first so you don't have feedback and phase artifacts going on in order to EQ the feedback out from the FOH feed.
I've heard (from touring artists) that the "New York thang" can be a nuisance. Like chatter during songs. That towns audience is the worst. I don't know about this really. Anyone can chime in? No wonder we need to be as loud as possible to drown all chatter out. I've been to one concert in the 60s (just) in 1969, and they chattered like hell there too. That was in Scandinavia, you know. One of these "silent" parts of the world, with population in. Still...
Speaking of prog stalwart Steven Wilson. His solo concerts had one of these epic tunes, the one that's called "Raider II" which is a 23:11 prog classic by now. If you ever heard this intro, it is very impressionistic and almost a horror movie soundtrack. The intro just start with a few ascending scale notes played very slowly, and then a very very long pause, and then it comes again, followed with a very very long pause again, and so it goes on quite a bit until he starts singing. VERY Dramatic, to say the least. In Copenhagen Denmark, he had to hush the audience WHILE playing it ruining totally, while in Malmoe Sweden the other week, the audience was dead silent. The same venue capacity (like 7-800) NON SEATED and sold out. It seems like the bigger the city, the more chatter. Copenhagen has plus 1 million citizens, Malmoe about 300.000. They're opposite of each other, just 20 minutes by train.
