Turn it up (NO!!)

[Muddslide]

I never understood the "louder=better" thing. It's similar to how some people want their food as spicy-hot as possible.

Are you just trying to prove what a bad s.o.b. you are or something?

"Ha, those chicken wings I just ate were marinated in muriatic acid and triple-coated in a sauce of scotch bonnet, habanero, ghost peppers and chilis from a Guatemalan insane asylum...86 bajillion Scoville units--yum!"

After a point, to me it ceases to be flavor and moves into pure heat and misery.

I grew up playing in lame punk rock bands and later other loud rock bands. 25 years of gigging and attending shows. I started wearing ear plugs early on. I'd get poked fun at on occasion, but didn't care. Still wanted to have hearing when I turned 40. (I'm 50 now...hearing still mostly intact.)

But there seems to be a concept that the LOUDER a band is, the cooler and more rock and roll they are.

Like with the super spicy food, after a point, to me it ceases being music and just becomes volume.

What happened to dynamics? To good, live music played plenty loud but without causing injury?

As others have stated, some of this may be due to FOH/ sound people running the live mix, but I personally know folks in bands who swear by "louder is better."

I've been to shows where the sound was such a big mess of loud noise that I may as well have just had my head inside a running jet engine for all the musical enjoyment I got.

I mean, I don't mind some volume, dissonance, feedback, etc. I like some music many might find noisy or difficult, but why blast everything at 11 all through a show?

For grins, the loudest shows I ever saw were:

Flaming Lips at a smallish club in OKC, late 80s

Psychic TV in Dallas, early 90s

Comets On Fire, Virginia, around 2006.

[Long Road Home]

My son (a jazz trumpeter) and I went to see Herbie Hancock play at the Montreal Jazz Festival last summer.

The opening act was Thundercat, an incredibly talented bass player, who played with a drummer and keyboard player. The sound level was so loud that it was close to painful and neither of us had earplugs. I was really concerned, and we spent most of the act with our fingers in our ears to mute it a bit. IMHO, there's just no need to play at that volume, and I was kind of surprised that a performance venue like Place des Arts didn't just turn them down.

At least 25 percent of the audience walked out. Most returned when Herbie Hancock played his unbelievable set (and at a very sane level).

[Tenzin]

I have no affiliation with this company but have heard two unrelated instances of Eargasm ear 'filters' being pretty good. I thought I'd just leave that bit of info here.

[Neil K Walk]

I have never understood why they need to have the volume so loud. I’m guessing it has to do with having insufficient monitoring so each player is trying to drown all the others out so that they can hear themselves in the mix.

Meanwhile, the audience is literally being buffeted with wind from the walls of speakers and the quality of sound is so bad that you can feel when a guitar is out of tune. I’ve been to concerts that were louder than working on an aircraft carrrier.

Yet another reason why I like solo acoustic performances.

[Bikewer]

Years ago I read an interview with (as I recall) Jeff Baxter titled “It’s Too Loud!”

He was struck by the fact that the entire band (Doobie Brothers) was wearing ear protection, while the audience in the front rows were being subjected to 110 dB +.

I also read an article by a Swedish naval commander who was complaining about the news articles indicating they were unable to detect Soviet subs.
He pointed out how hard it was to get young sailors with hearing undamaged by loud rock music... And SONAR is all about hearing.

One more.. To go back to medieval times, when I was in high school, my friends and I went to a dance in a typical high-school gymnasium.... About 1962 or so. As soon as we walked in, the music was painfully loud and I could only stand it for a short time. Yet the other kids were all out there dancing and apparently enjoying themselves.
I think there’s a sort of “trance state” thing going on. You watch the kids at some concerts like this, all “head banging” and apparently zoned-out to some degree or another.... This is very similar to primitive trance-inducing behavior in some primitive cultures.

[Neil K Walk]

Is headbanging to music still a thing? I thought that was a 1980s thing?

[Tahitijack]

Our former lead guitar use to turn up his amp and guitar all night. The rest of us adjusted accordingly. He never thought we were too loud until he hit a bar we played regularly to see another band. When he told the owner that band was too loud, the owner told him we were louder. He stopped turning up.

My rule of thumb is, if the bartender and waitresses can't hear a food and beverage order, you are too loud. Turn it down....

[brad2001]

In their early days, Kansas, with the raging fiddle would make you want to just go ahead and pull your ears off.

[guitar george]

Many years ago I was at a nightclub standing next to a loud booming bass speaker. After a while my heart started pounding to the beat of the pounding music. I had to get out of there fast to avoid having a heart attack. I was fine shortly after and returned, but, stayed away from the speakers.

[mdhttr]

I attended my share of loud rock concerts back in the day: Van Halen, Sammy Hagar, Rush, Journey, etc. and probably damaged my hearing between that and loud car stereos. Recently attended a Vince Gill/Amy Grant concert benefitting the military at the Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs with a mostly middle-aged upper crust crowd. Laid-back and mellow, right? Wrong. Concert started with the national anthem sung by a woman with an operatic voice. She was talented, but I had to cover my ears it was so piercing. Then the electric guitarist (not Vince) was so loud that I wadded up pieces of tissue to put in my ears. Great show, but the sound volume was not what I expected.

On a side note, Amy looked elegant and beautiful while Vince was shabbily-dressed with a three-day beard. He made a joke about his other gig with the Eagles so maybe his look fit in better with them. On the other hand, Amy's voice was a bit rough, but Vince was as clear as ever.