Turn it up (NO!!)

MikeBmusic · #1 11-05-2018, 08:22 AM

Friday night I went to see a local band - the guitarist had played in my acoustic band last year, before this gig took precedence. Lot of 80s music - Journey, AC/DC, etc. Guitar + bass + keys + drums + lead singer. My friend uses a Marshall with 4x12 cabinet, bass player had a similar sized amp, keys into PA, a couple of mics on the drums. PA was two subs with 15" mains on poles.

I knew they were going to be loud from what my friend had said before, but when they started it was painful. I was already half-way done with my beer, so left when I drained it. I was sitting off to one side at the bar, too. I watched some women come in, and try to order drinks and one kept saying (I was reading her lips) "it's so loud...it's so loud...'

I'm thankful that I found this place so that I know I'm not the only one who doesn't need music turned up to 11 all the time!

DungBeatle · #2 11-05-2018, 09:00 AM

I lost 20-30% of my hearing before I even graduated high school because I played in loud bands. Then after I graduated, we got even louder. I haven't listened to that kind of loud music in a long time and my hearing has greatly improved, but now I have tinnitus, crap... Never again will I take chances with my hearing.
~Bob

Mr. Jelly · #3 11-05-2018, 10:54 AM

When I go out and about I like to at least have a chance to talk to people. Several years ago I went to a non profit music club that a fiend of mine runs. Ray Wylie Hubbard was playing there. Part way into his set he started complaining from the stage to a couple of people at the small bar, that was off to the side of the room, about their talking. I hadn't even noticed. I don't think much of Hubbard now and haven't been back to the club.

Johnny K · #4 11-05-2018, 11:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MikeBmusic

Friday night I went to see a local band - the guitarist had played in my acoustic band last year, before this gig took precedence. Lot of 80s music - Journey, AC/DC, etc. Guitar + bass + keys + drums + lead singer. My friend uses a Marshall with 4x12 cabinet, bass player had a similar sized amp, keys into PA, a couple of mics on the drums. PA was two subs with 15" mains on poles.

I knew they were going to be loud from what my friend had said before, but when they started it was painful. I was already half-way done with my beer, so left when I drained it. I was sitting off to one side at the bar, too. I watched some women come in, and try to order drinks and one kept saying (I was reading her lips) "it's so loud...it's so loud...'

I'm thankful that I found this place so that I know I'm not the only one who doesn't need music turned up to 11 all the time!

I have on occasion I have had to stick pieces of bar napkins in my ears. Buddy Guy @ Hammerjacks in Baltimore in the mid 90's is still the loudest club concert I have ever experienced.

Bob Womack · #5 11-05-2018, 11:48 AM

If it involves live music, I take ear plugs. Simple as that. Even if I pay big bucks for the concert.

Bob

muscmp · #6 11-05-2018, 11:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bob Womack

If it involves live music, I take ear plugs. Simple as that. Even if I pay big bucks for the concert.

Bob

me too. especially if i am toward the back of the building where it roars. i've found, depending upon the location, that i am better being in front of the band than the back of the room.

play music!

Denny B · #7 11-05-2018, 12:38 PM

The worse case scenario I've dealt with about this was about a year or so ago...

My wife and I had tickets to see Chris Stapleton in a great local venue...seats a little less than a thousand, great acoustics and I've seen everyone from The Mavericks, Patty Loveless, Frankie Vallie, and Merle Haggard there over the years...I was a huge fan of Stapleton's, and I think he's one of the best writers to come along in years...

The show kicked off, and the volume went off the scale...everyone was plugged in, the guitars were distorted beyond belief, and the vocals sounded like banshees screaming...I literally couldn't make out a lyric, and couldn't tell what songs they were playing...

Earplugs were useless, and my wife started getting physically sick about 15 minutes in...we had to leave and there was a line out the door with others complaining to staff that the volume was ridiculously loud and painful...

One of the most disappointing shows I've seen in my life...

frankmcr · #8 11-05-2018, 12:46 PM

Seems like a lot of bands have only one setup, & they figure if they can only have one it might as well be the one they're gonna use when they headline at the Hollywood Bowl . . .

Davis Webb · #9 11-05-2018, 01:04 PM

Good point. I am playing a gig this week, they insisted on no amplification for just that reason.

Loud is good when you are 16.

leew3 · #10 11-05-2018, 03:35 PM

I'm with all of you here. When our duo sets up we assure patrons already present that they'll still be able to hold a conversation after we start. It's a shame with all of the advances in sound reinforcement that too much live music is still too loud. A former band mate fronts a couple of different groups and I have told him that I can't listen to them as they're too loud. I fear that his hearing is so compromised that he doesn't know any different. I too take ear plugs to live shows now-a custom set my audiologist had made for me when I got my hearing aid !

Earl49 · #11 11-05-2018, 03:45 PM

I work in noise control, and have always been very protective of my hearing. As I often tell people, your ear can only be exposed to a certain finite amount of sound energy in your life. If you use it up early, expect to have hearing loss later.

Earplugs are an integral part of attending any music event these days. And I attend fewer events with each passing year.

KevWind · #12 11-05-2018, 04:01 PM

Yep... I simply will not sit through an uncomfortably loud concert.
Even when I was young , I walked out of a Johnny Winter concert after 15 min. of holding my hands over my ears...

unimogbert · #13 11-05-2018, 04:54 PM

..........

Steve DeRosa · #14 11-05-2018, 05:18 PM

I started playing out on electric guitar in mid-1964, when stage/house volume levels were reasonable and my then-new Ampeg Rocket was plenty...

Within a couple years I was renting larger and larger amps - never went to a stack (wouldn't fit in my dad's '61 Chevy) but plugged into my share of blackface/early silverface Twins and Supers, as well as a Haynes Jazz King or two (not much tone, but lotsa volume)...

First time I came away from a show with stuffy ears I knew I had to get out of that game, and soon - stopped playing electric right about the time of Woodstock and, other than home practice and some low-volume studio work, played nothing but acoustic for the next fifteen years...

Still got my hearing, got back into electric in the mid/late-80's, but now I travel with a sound-level meter - don't even think of asking me to turn up past 90dB peak...

Silly Moustache · #15 11-05-2018, 05:20 PM

My earliest gigs (that I went to, rather than played) were all electric gigs. I saw bands like the Rolling Stones using Vox AC30s - my band mates longed to have such fine amps to replace their 15 watt Watkins or Selmer (?) amps.

Even with those we could entertain audiences of 300-plus.

Then the Marshall stacks came in.

When we dd gigs where the sound men wanted to mic up my drum kit I decided it was getting silly.

I was getting into acoustic blues guitar anyway.

It might have been 1970 (?) that I was dragged to see "ELO" at Finsbury Park (The Rainbow) - it was literally, painfully, loud. I had to stay because my friends wanted to. My hearing never fully recovered.

The last electric gig I attended was Steve Earle & the Dukes at the Shepherds Bush Empire. My friends and I lasted for about 20-25 minutes and walked out.

I can no longer attend electric gigs.

Even when I attend acoustic gigs with , obviously, a p.a. system, I take earplugs and try to sit as close to the stage as possible hoping the speakers will go past us.

Tonight we played out first full gig since early 2016. We played fully acoustically. I could have taken the p.a. but decided not to. It went really well.

People "listen"!