Hearing issues & loud gigs: what are the loudest gigs that you have ever been to?

[RAY AGAINST THE MACHINE]

Believe it or not , since going to my first gig in '79, I can only think of 2 .. Or 3 at a push .

1) iron maiden , metal for muthas gig Lyceum 1979. Can't remember how many encores they did ( more than 2) . Di'anno was screaming at the sound guys to turn it up even louder . Even some of the muthas had enough. Bit too uncomfortable.

2) manowar ( snigger;) ) Blow your speakers tour hammy odeon 1987(?)
Full Marshall stack . Not for show. They used them . Halfway back in the stalls, sound was great , despite the volume.

3) Motörhead ace up your sleeve tour , hammy o 1980. I had the flu , but saw 2 of the 4 gigs there .
Lemmy passing my friend vodka with a tiny it if orange juice didn't help. Deaf for all of the next day .

Anybody else ?

[RhysP]

I've seen all the bands you would expect to be loud (Motorhead, Maiden, Judas Priest etc.) many times over the years but by far the loudest band I've ever seen were Asia at Wembley Arena in 1982.

[Earbrass]

Led Zep at Earls Court, May 1975. Very echoey (?) venue. Extremely loud - felt like your ears were distorting the sound through overload. And they played for 3 hours. I had ringing in my ears for weeks afterwards.

Edited March 8, 2016 by Earbrass

[BobVbass]

Saxon Hammersmith Odeon, Innocence is no excuse tour - 1985 - Ears ringing for days so loudly I couldn't sleep

[RhysP]

Kiss at the NEC in 1995 or 96 were astonishingly loud too. A sudden combination of sound pressure & heat from the flame cannons caused one of the people I was with to pass out.
f***ing awesome gig.

[Dad3353]

The Ox (Entwistle's lot...) at Bracknell College, early '70s (..?). Left (swearing...) after about 10 minutes. Not just the bass (which was horrendous...), but the sax, too. Literally stomach-turning.

Edited March 8, 2016 by Dad3353

[chris_b]

Tony Williams Lifetime at the Marquee about 1969. Everyone had 200watt Marshall stacks on 11. Definitely the first most pointlessly and stupidly loud gig I remember.

I believe Gary Moore ruined the hearing of several band members.

Including the drummer I played with in a Led Zeppelin tribute band a few years ago. Crazy volume levels, probably louder than Led Zep themselves played.

[Luulox]

Motorhead on the bomber tour I think it was and in sheffield the support band was man o war. They had a competition between themselves of who could play the loudest. It was like been stood in an hurricane and I was deaf for a good couple of days.

[KevB]

Inevitably Motorhead (Rock City, you can't escape the racket) but two that were really unnecessarily loud for the venues were Blue Oyster Cult in mid 80'sat the Royal Concert Hall in Nottm (specifically designed to have good acoustics for classical concerts etc) and David Lee Roth at the NEC, on freebie tickets only a few rows from stage and we were pinned back in our seats from the onstage wall of cabs. Even if some of them were dummies it was unspeakably overloud.

[Cato]

A band called Brittany Fox supporting Alice Cooper on the Trash tour at the NEC.

I was pretty much at the front & I swear when they started everybody took a step back because of the physical force of the volume. Then people started leaving.

They were an order of magnitude louder than both the other support band & Alice himself when he came on. I've never experienced that sort of stomach churning physical discomfort from the sheer volume of a live band before or since & I've seen a fair few bands famed for their supposedly excessive volume.

[JapanAxe]

AC/DC, Sheffield Poly, 1978
Slipknot, Bristol Anson Rooms, on their first UK tour (2000/2001?)

[Cosmo Valdemar]

Them Crooked Vultures at the Brixton Academy. It was definitely just the wrong side of loud, where things are starting to get uncomfortable.
I actually found out later that the gig had left some poor chap with such horrendous tinnitus that he commited suicide a short time later.

Funnily enough, I've seen Motorhead several times and never thought it was too loud.

[Gottastopbuyinggear]

Motorhead at Cardiff University Union in the late eighties. I knew it would be loud and stuffed some cotton wool in my ears, which might have helped a bit. Just before it started a couple of the more hardened members of the local heavy rock scene sought me out. I thought they were going to take the piss because they'd heard I had cotton wool in my ears - turned out they wanted to know if I had any spare...

[Paul S]

Lamb of God supporting Heaven and Hell (ie Dio) version of Black Sabbath at Wembley a few years ago. That was probably the loudest wall of noise I have ever experienced.

[BigRedX]

Mine was Polysics playing their one-off UK debut gig in the Bar venue of the Islington Academy.

Tiny venue and almost ear-bleeding volume. The two support bands played at far more sensible levels and were all the better for it. The volume was verging on painful but as I expected this to be the only chance I'd get to see Polysics without going to Japan, I endured it. My ears were ringing for days.

Of course Polysics went on to do 3 full UK tours and this was just the first of many times I saw them - all at far more comfortable volumes.

[RhysP]

[quote name='Cosmo Valdemar' timestamp='1457442988' post='2998588']
Funnily enough, I've seen Motorhead several times and never thought it was too loud.
[/quote]

Same here.

[howdenspur]

Led Zep May 1975 as mentioned above at Earls Court. Really poor acoustics combined with the initial salvo of noise meant I no idea what the opening number was. I've Blue Oyster Cult several times over the years - never struck me as that loud.

[RhysP]

A friend of mine who has seen pretty much every legendary loud rock band you can name still reckons that the loudest band he ever saw was OMD in a small venue on one of their first tours.

[Roland Rock]

Soil and Pimp Sessions (Jazz Cafe London)

Chemical Brothers (Festival tent, Perth , Oz)

Pressure Tennants (The Donkey, Leicester. Deaf ex muso soundguy)

[RockfordStone]

saw motorhead in cambridge some years ago now, that was by far the loudest

[neepheid]

Maiden, AECC a few years ago. I think the support (Airbourne) were even louder though! And stupidly I forgot my plugs - I felt like I was underwater for some of the next day. Not cool.

[KevB]

[quote name='howdenspur' timestamp='1457443828' post='2998608']
I've Blue Oyster Cult several times over the years - never struck me as that loud.
[/quote]

Me too, they were fine every other time i saw them but that one gig was horrendous. My theory is they were otherwise playing venues on that tour that were poor acoustically and had to crank it up to get over pillars etc (like they had in Leeds Queens Hall for eg). The engineers probably just kept all the settings from previous gig but in the acoustically well designed RCH it was way over the top.

[KevB]

[quote name='Paul S' timestamp='1457443650' post='2998602']
[b]Lamb of God[/b] supporting Heaven and Hell (ie Dio) version of Black Sabbath at Wembley a few years ago. That was probably the loudest wall of noise I have ever experienced.
[/quote]

I'd forgotten about that lot. Saw them on same tour in Nottm, me and my mate lasted all of 3 songs before retiring to the bar until H&H came on.

[mike f]

The Rollins Band supporting the Chili Peppers at The Brixton Academy in 1992. Great gig all the same.

Motorhead didn't strike me as being too loud; just good n loud, if you know what I mean?

AC/DC at Download were possibly the loudest band I've heard at an outdoor gig.

[NoRhino]

Slade. Every time whatever the venue.
Aerosmith at Livingston Forum. Trouser flappingly loud.