I have more watts in my rig than my first 2 bands put together, (actually with my new 900 watt amp, that's probably the first 3 bands) but IME the more you turn the volume controls anti-clockwise the better the tone gets. Funny that!
We played a gig on Saturday where we were asked to play "a bit quieter", because of neighbour problems. We turned down, got a good balance, had an enjoyable gig, the audience spent the night dancing and we did 3 encores.
The pub owner was telling us afterwards that the rock bands (with their huge stacks of amps) on the previous 2 gigs had refused to turn down, causing him lots of problems.
They've been fired and we've got 4 gigs there next year.