Ear Bleeding Concert Volume - Latest Disaster, GBV at White Eagle Hall in NJ

GBV GBV GBV <3 <3 <3

 

the early 1991 show or 93, whenever there all a blur anyway, COC opened, and we only stayed for two metallica songs, and we left, the sound was poor, and they seemed way too lethargic for a metal act, we left and went to Lawrence's fish and bought 2 pounds of breaded shrimp, walked the city, bought old english 800's and fell asleep in the grass, only to be shook violently awake by chicago's finest. good times

 

then, yo really PO someone, the venues now charge yoou either 3 or 5 dollars for a pack of two earplugs, robbery, i tell ya, pure robbery. isn't it bad enough im forced to buy your pabst blue ribbon tall boys at 8 dollars each. sheesh, made of money.....heck no !

 

hmm..I saw them the night before in Philly and it was epic..no sound problems that I can remember.

 

Well, to be perfectly honest it isn't as bad as I made it seem over here, but the hearing is pretty shot. In addidtion to going to a lot of shows and playing guitar rather badly (and loudly) in a couple of bands, I've worked at gigs, as a bouncer, DJ, bartender and in restaurants, plus a few years driving forklifts and such when I was young, so I really did my hearing a lot of damage and I'm actually lucky that it isn't worse than it is.

The right one is pretty bad, but I haven't got tinnitus at least. Knock on wood. Who's that?! Can't hear ya!

 

i now get them from work, as its union bi-laws which states water and hearing protection are mandatory for us. so i manage to acquire a few boxes here and there, have boxes in the garage, but ill be damned if all these earplugs i have, why can't i remember to bring a single pack then i leave for the show...... getting old bites

 

I'm glad someone actually got something positive out of this subject

 

It sounds like you made the right choice, especially with the shrimp.

 

So surely the simple answer if for shows to be at a lower volume.....(says the Motorhead fan)

I saw W.A.S.P on their Headless Children tour.....2 days later and I was sure there was permanent damage there......

On the other hand.....saw Miranda Lambert last year and the show was so quiet (especially vocals) that at times is was incoherent.

 

I always bring earplugs to concerts. Many of them are just way too loud, and sound better with them in.

One time at a Jethro Tull concert, the sound wasn't overly loud, but the mix was just terrible. It was all bass. We complained to the venue and ended up getting free tickets to another show.

 

...which might have something to do with what Blackie did to yer eardrums in '89

 

Yep, King Krule at the Fox in Oakland, measured 108dB on my phone.

 

Because the big venues are not designed for music. Every arena is deliberately built with hard, reflective surfaces to be "loud", like the terrible Sprint Center in Kansas City, built to acoustically amplify the cheering fans of a professional sports team that the city doesn't have. It's used once a year for the NCAA college basketball championship, but the rest of the time it's used for concerts, for which it is manifestly not well suited. So the sound engineers (virtually all of whom are touring with the band) have to try to produce good sound in a nasty, reverberant soup bowl. The newer "Line Array" systems deal with this problem by controlling the pattern of the speakers to direct as much sound as possible to the audience, and as little as possible to the ceiling and floor.

One other factor is that modern stages are quieter. In the recent issue of Live Sound International they profiled the engineer for Avenged Sevenfold, a band you would expect to be all about the decibels. Nope, they are all on in-ear monitors and all of their guitar amps are in insulated boxes off-stage. This means that there are none of those slant-faced monitors on the stage that the main "house" speakers have to overpower. This allows the sound engineer to produce vastly greater dynamic range.

Pete Townshend's tinnitus is so bad that when I saw him do the Lifehouse concert, the poor guy had to kneel down and put his head right next to his monitor speaker to tune his guitar!

 

Yeah, I remember reading an interview with James Hetfield of Metallica many years ago and he said that the only way he could fall asleep was to have the tv on to drown out the various noises in his ears. That actually scared me enough to use plugs to most rock shows and at work if I could and probably saved what hearing I have left these days. Talking about being scared straight...

 

Hah, the first time I've ever heard anyone describe the sound at Terminal 5 as "perfect."

 

I love mine! I buy a pair every few years for around $12, and keep them in my pill case on my keychain. I'll wash them to deal with the inevitable earwax every few shows.

They are far superior to the foam plugs because they reduce every frequency evenly - same sound balance, just less of it.

 

I should have them tomorrow. I'll road test them in North Carolina next week! I love the keychain idea, and I'm gonna copy your style!

 

Perfect sound for GBV? That's hard to imagine. Saw them twice in the mid-90's, and there seemed no care for sound quality at all. Just be as loud and drunk as possible. Sure, they rocked, but the second time ~ ridiculous volume on top of another muddy mix ~ was enough.

My one experience with Built To Spill was marred by volume, too, especially the snare drum ~ which sounded like a gunshot every single beat. The whole show. That one definitely hurt my ears.

At one of the several P-Funk shows I saw (thankfully only one of them) the bass was so loud you couldn't even hear notes, you just felt it like a cannon into your chest... I eventually had to leave the floor, I feared I was literally sustaining physical damage. I've since become convinced it's the poor acoustics of that venue, and you need to stay off to the sides (forgoing the best view of the stage) if you don't want to be blown out.

 

Van Halen in 2012. It was so loud that the sound was muffled. Left half way through, perhaps the most disappointing concert I ever attended.

 

I was dumb enough to attend death metal concerts as a teen where I'd stand a few feet away from the speakers without earplugs and then think "it's not loud enough." It was then of course really difficult to hear anyone clearly even in a very quiet room afterwards for a day or two. Sadly I attended way too many shows as a teen and in my early 20s that way without earplugs to the point where I rarely want to go to concerts anymore.

 

Contrasting the horribly mixed debacles I described above, a couple of shows ~ Black Crowes (Warpaint tour) & Dark Star Orchestra (the last time I saw them just this winter) ~ were mixed so well that I never realized how loud the show was till I laid my head on the pillow that night, and couldn't fall asleep for the ringing. Even wore really good earplugs for the latter, which I foolishly removed for the encores.

 

Club shows. As much as I love small venues for bands, I’m done being in front and getting drilled by piercing Fender Twin Reverb amps.

Larger venues. The addition of subwoofers to larger venues I think is a big problem because they get overused. I saw No Doubt once where the bass low end made my body vibrate. Who needs that?

 

Central Park (and Forest Hills) has decibel limits (and 10:00 curfews) because of residential areas nearby.

I'm seeing The Breeders the night before at Brooklyn Steel.

 

I really do think volume is the next smoking. How many times does a bar crank tunes in between the live bands, so you never get a break? Or even restaurants ~ I don't hesitate anymore to ask a waiter/waitress to have music volume turned down so I can actually converse without shouting.

There really does need to be some warnings to youth on protecting their hearing: pace yourselves, once it's gone, it's not coming back. (Between shows, stereos, amps, & mic feedback, I've got hi frequency damage to my right ear. Not tinnitus, but an increasingly loud & more consistently present white noise. There are certain birdsongs I can no longer hear )

 

Always bring earplugs. No matter the venue, the band, always bring them. I work in steel mills, laboratories, manufacturing facilities and even the loudest places I’ve been - all employees and visitors or required to have earplugs - much quieter than a concert. FWIW I just carry cheap “disposable” type and I’ve never been unhappy. You’ll thank yourself in the long run.

I saw Metallica last year and was front row. Had my earplugs in but the bass was seriously rattling my chest and stomach. Not sure how anyone could do it without earplugs!