loudest band you've ever seen

High on Fire.

more recently, Clinic were extremely loud and skreechy...

louder than the loudest: the who...in 1989, believe it or not.

oddly enough, when i saw fushitsusha they weren't that loud.

yeah, that's what I was gonna say.

I also remember Zeni Geva being pretty loud.

We have meeting rooms at work intended to hold six people. They contain the same fire alarms as are used in open-plan areas. That's pretty much what it was like. Very hard to make anything out with or without earplugs. There's a level beyond which it becomes a stupid ordeal. I remember the first UK Swans tour being about the same, but with an utterly brutal moshpit to boot. Lovely.

x-post: Metallica weren't that loud when I saw them on that tour at the Capitol Centre in Lanover as Crazy Horse were in the same venue on the tour that became Arc/Weld.

- Neil Young & Crazy Horse on the 1991 tour w/Sonic Youth

- Borbetomagus and Merzbow (co-billed but not collaborating) at Tonic; when Merzbow pressed "play" on his laptop it was like a jet suddenly taking off from the stage

- Pantera, and their soundmix was for shit, too, so it was just raw pain

- Keiji Haino solo guitar at CBGBs

- High On Fire

Surprisingly not all that loud: Fushitsusha (though I was wearing earplugs)

All three were just painful. But too fun to leave.

Also, RATM at Roseland Ballroom in '99 counts as the most intense show I've attended. Loud, heavy and exhausting.

Way louder than Dinosaur Jr, Mogwai, etc. the times I saw them.

I couldn't hear my own voice for 2 days.

"These guys aren't so loud!"

"What?"

"I said, THESE GUYS AREN'T SO LOUD."

"WHAT?"

"NEVER MIND."

Also Peter Brotzmann. Holy SHIT.

Also, JAMC and Sugar seconded.

More oddly, Pale Saints.

i remember the SCARIEST loud noise i ever heard at a show. it was gwar in a small club in 1989 and they let off some pyro explosion that should NEVER have been let off in a club that small. scared the living hell out of me. a very loud exlosion going off 10 feet from your face will do that though.

The Camaros broke up, and their guitarist is in Bionic now, but I doubt they sound as loud as that show I saw.

Rammer's still around, probably just as loud.

Let me second this. Saw the same show. It hurt so good.

Mmmmmm. Broadcast did that when I saw them supporting Yo La Tengo about 4 years ago.

Good loud: Beasts of Bourbon reunion show at the Lava Lounge.

though i hear bailter space at the same venue just a few months later may have been even louder...

I imagine their volume levels were somewhat tame by today's standards.

My Bloody Valentine (at Hammerjacks! ... in Baltimore!)

No so Loud
High Rise
Motorhead

'Twas meh.

Kitchens of Distinction - Ears ringing for two days.

Test Department - Ears ringing ringing for three days.

was like 10 drills digging into the brain
excess alcohol and substances were of little help

Loudest shows I ever saw - Manowar, Motorhead, Merzbow, Sunn O))), Swans.

The Who in 1975 were pretting f'in loud too, I was in the very back of Riverfront Coliseum where the sounds rezound off the ceiling.

Saw John Cale's Sabotage tour myself, which I remember as a great show but not super-loud though he did have a "metal" gtrist IIRC.

Loudest good band: Primal Scream seconded.

I should also mention Big Sugar as being notable loud.

however, it's still one of my favorite shows i've ever been to.

Sugar was really loud, as was a Nashville Pussy show I saw a year or so ago in a small club. I've seen bunches of hard guitar shows, but those two stick out in my head along with the Prong gig.

Tricky had the most ungodly loud bass sound I have ever heard live. It did not have that high mids cutting into your head like a hard rock show, but the bass literally would come in waves and rattle your body.

The weirdest thing happened at the ATR show I saw in Chicago. Granted it was effing LOUD - but also incredibly physical, vis a vis the "mosh pit" to use the parlance of our times. When we exited said pit, we made sure all limbs were intact and my friend Christina found she had a new pager on her belt (?!!!) She had somehow hit someone, or jumped simultaneously with someone in a way that unclipped the pager from them and re-clipped it onto her. Very strange. Any Chicago people remember loosing a pager in 2000?

Black Flag (five-piece line up with Dez) somewhere in downtown LA.
Curve (Cuckoo tour at the Palace)

and believe it or not... Yes (90125 tour at the Forum)

MIA was followed by LCD Soundsystem, at appropriate volume.

Otherwise, probably standing in front of Luke's Jazz Chorus at a Rapture show. Dude sure does like the "bright" switch.

I WAS AT THIS SHOW. Lupos in downtown Providence, November 2001, I believe. Great show!

after a while my ears must have got used to it and the gig was one of the best and most powerful things i have ever witnessed with gira rolling about the stage almost completely naked. in hindsight, it was really stupidly loud. probably illegally loud but at the time i loved it.

i went to see them in glasgow the next night but it was cancelled as the venue there refused point blank to let them bring the pa into the building.

the next loudest thing was jeff mills also at the edinburgh venue circa 1997 when he played at a club night i did there. he had had some of his tracks cut onto metal acetates (which he would play and then throw onto the ground - i guess they were pretty indestructable). the process of having them cut onto metal (something i have never seen before or since) meant that they were about twice the volume of normal vinyl. the club was notoriously loud to begin with but this was just insane. i was standing behind him and smelled burning and looked round and saw that he had literally caused one of the monitors to go on fire. as was mentioned in one of the whitehouse posts above, the air took on a weird texture. for the whole night i had been unable to find my friend sam. she had been up for a couple of nights so i figured she must have gone to sleep in her car. at the end of jeff mills' set, she emerged from beneath a pile of coats under the dj riser. she had slept through the whole thing!

The most OTM thing on this thread.

Most unexpectedly loud band? Cocteau Twins. The shows around 84/85 were very, very loud indeed and considering some of the venues they were in it's hard to see how they got away with it.

I also once played a gig with a band in Iowa called Scorched Earth Policy whose guitarist was plugged into a speaker bigger than the club's mains. During soundcheck the mix guy confidentially showed me that the power on the board was completely off and it was still completely deafening. God Bless you, Scorched Earth Policy!

Motörhead on their 'The Wörld is yours' tour, ~50 meters from stage.
(pic shows deciBel for android)
http://s7.directupload.net/images/101206/temp/57ig5czy.jpg

Sunn 0))) in 2005 in manchester for sheer brain busting volume in a 100 cap venue. Every time a pint was put down it shimmyed off the table onto the floor. Gigs/clubs are so so anal about volume levels in london now it was amazing to be blown away in berlin recently at mikz and berghain

BORIS

neds atomic dustbin 94

Yeah, I think Motorhead is probably the loudest band I've seen.
They brought their own monitor set up and it was bigger than the house PA.
And it was at the biggest club in town. They were great and really loved their reception from the locals.

MBV at Ricky's in Leeds in spring 88. A tiny nightclub with its speakers in all four corners of the room. So loud it was hard to tell which was up or down. It was actually quite frightening. Got the hearing in my left ear permanently damaged by Airbourne at the Borderline a couple of years back, but I think that would have been fine if I'd been able to get a bit further away from the speakers. Since then, my left ear starts hurting if things are getting too loud, and the most pain caused has been by, of all bands, Fleet Foxes at the Roundhouse. Had to stick finger in ear, so it looked as if I was harmonising.

Boris were ridiculous when I saw them. I'm not really a fan of metal; I just saw them because the show was cheap and I was in Milwaukee that day. When they handed out earplugs at the door, I knew about what to expect. Whenever you took the earplugs out you would just get overwhelmed by noise. It was just physically painful to be without them.

Most shows I've seen in general have been too loud. Maybe my ears are just weak but every time I go without earplugs I find it hard to really have a good time. Plus knowing that your ears will ring for a couple of days after plus you might get permanent hearing loss is kind of a turn off. I wonder why they don't just turn it down a notch. The only two shows I saw that were not too loud were Kraftwerk and Sufjan Stevens (yeah, I know). I dig trying to drown out conversation but why make it physically painful?? (/cry)

MBV
Boredoms
Dino Jr

Swans (duh)

i don't remember them being ~quite~ as loud as Boris, but i saw lightning bolt at the same venue and my buddy had significant tinnitus for over a WEEK afterwards.

sunn O))) and oval

MBV was pretty loud even in a big venue.

my hearing was numb for a good 5 days after seeing lightning bolt

i saw a band called diet pills in a show my friend put on in my town and that was pretty face melting. none of the amplifiers were mic'ed either. http://www.last.fm/music/diet+pills/_/Sun

seen a few of the famously loud bands, but they all paled in comparison to, oddly, wire, which felt like a literal beating to the eardrums. also oddly, flaming lips c. 2003? gave me my scariest incident, as for a couple of days afterwards the hearing in my right ear was pitched up.

black keys were also very loud

Motorhead, hands down. I could feel my ear drum flapping in like a piece of wax paper in my skull. Actually left early because I could not take it, which was my official entry into middle age.

Envy @ ATP a couple of years back. I was bellowing inanely for days after that, with no concept of what actual sounds sounded like any more. Battles were on in the venue next door and had to turn their sound up to be heard, which just encouraged Envy to get even fucking louder.

Flaming Lips were known for playing v loud live back in the day, but I suppose it was odd they were that loud in 2003, long after their "makeover".

why make it physically painful?? (/cry)

Four years and 150-some posts before somebody asked this!

mogwai was one of the 1st answers way upthread, and yeah, when i saw them in 2000, they just about killed me. was at a medium sized club with a large dance floor, and by the end of their set, the crowd was pushed back like 20 or 30 feet from the stage, most of us out front or in the hallway leading in. overwhelming and quite painful, though they'd built up to that point over the course of the show - wasn't constant throughout. never seen MBV, but i've heard tales, and wonder whether mogwai were paying tribute.

flaming lips in the early 90s were loud as hell, but maybe not quite at ear-destroying mogwai levels.

speaking of ear destruction, the most damaging show i've ever seen has to have been the hellacopters in 1999. they were incredibly loud and i was incredibly drunk, near or in front of the PA for much of the show - a constant wall of piercing feedback throughout. when fu manchu came on afterwards, my ears were ringing so loudly that i could barely hear them. they were still ringing two or three days later, by far the longest post-show noise hangover i've ever experienced.

Azusa Plane were damn loud when I saw the.
:-/

Dinosaur Jr in 1992, I couldn't hear for days after.

In the non-metal category, loudest band I think i saw was Little Feat in the late 80s early 90s time frame. Killer band.

Quietest band: Im so used to going to hard rock/metal shows when I saw the Allman Bros. a couple years ago, I could barely hear it. They needed to turn up a little bit.

when The Body played at my store in october i honestly couldn't believe how loud they were. i tried to go up close, but the evil wind coming from their amps pushed me back. they were set up to play in, like, a medium-sized hall. in my basement.

why make it physically painful?? (/cry)

in the case of a lot of ppl listed itt I think the answer is basically 'because they're sociopaths'

Noxagt is about the loudest thing I've seen this year, just really grinding and relentless

last couple of times I've seen Green Velvet the bass has made drinks fall off flat surfaces

j mascis & the fog. j had something like 6 full marshall stacks + 5 or so other amps. didn't have earplugs and i'll be paying for it 'til the day i die.

― 6335, Friday, April 28, 2006 1:43 PM (4 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

j mascis & the fog were LOUD and unrelenting. prior to this show i've never had buzzing in my ears for more than 2 days. scared the shit out of me.

― bmus (bmus), Friday, April 28, 2006 1:50 PM (4 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

haha, came here to say this. saw the reunited Dinosaur Jr. once or twice years later and they were surprisingly not quite so loud.

There are several candidates, but only one show has actually produced obvious, permanent hearing loss, and that was Mastodon earlier this year. My right ear has never fully recovered. Granted, this was probably a straw-camel's back situation, because I've seen tons of loud shows and never been good about wearing earplugs. And the thing is, Mastodon seemed REALLY LOUD during the show, but not painfully the way some other shows have. I think it was just the sustained level of it, it was a long show and it was pretty much never not REALLY LOUD.

In retrospect, me suddenly deciding to start going to metal shows in my mid-30s was probably not a good call. Several AMT gigs in small spaces, Wolves in the Thrown Room, Liturgy, Ludicra, Mastodon... sort of asking for trouble right at the age when cumulative hearing loss tends to catch up. Should've gotten into chamber music instead.

2nd the early 90s dino jr (haven't seen j & the fog). a lot of rock-oriented ex-indie bands did this with the major label money during those years. like they'd been trying all along to be as big & loud as possible, then went overboard when it became possible.

haven't seen a REALLY loud show in quite a while. probably because the bands i go see are typically poverty-stricken and playing in tiny places for like five bucks. or else i'm less drawn to the earthcrushing stuff. wooden shjips & AFCGT were pretty impressive last winter, though.

and AMT shit yeah. have had cotton casino shaped holes drilled into my brain by that band.

Swans on the Children Of God tour. I saw them at Newcastle Riverside, and as I've said elsewhere, every snare hit was like a cannon going off right beside your ear; plus you had enough time to anticipate/dread each one. Deeply, desperately unpleasant.

Mogwai at Glasgow Barrowlands (1999?) were stupendously loud. Driving back to Newcastle, I was back in England before my ears popped - prior to that it had been like being in a plane when the pressure means you can't hear anything.

MBV, on the Rollercoaster tour, were loud, but at the time it also felt kind of dumb. The venue (an ice rink) had shit acoustics and it was pointless to as loud as they were. hen they did You Made Me Realise, and hit that frequency for ten minutes or whatever, I looked at across at the St.Johns Ambulance men who were there (wearing building site ear defenders) and they had looks on their faces of "you kids are idiots for putting up with this". I agreed with them.

These days I wear plugs if I think it's going to go past a certain level (the Mogwai gig mentioned above scared the shit out of me) and so it's hard to guage just how loud bands have been recently, but even so (and just to go full circle), there was no mistaking the volume that Swans played at when I saw them at Leeds this year; each bass drum hit was like a shove in the chest.

swans gig in boston was v v loud but not painful

when The Body played at my store in october i honestly couldn't believe how loud they were. i tried to go up close, but the evil wind coming from their amps pushed me back. they were set up to play in, like, a medium-sized hall. in my basement.

― scott seward, Monday, December 6, 2010 1:45 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

what's funny is that until very recently they didn't play many medium-sized halls, they've been playing small places like as220 and chip's always been crazy with the volume. they fit in the fine pvd tradition of punishing-volume bands. there's one local doom metal band who aren't all that good, so I'm not calling them out by name, but they made the walls shake at machines w/ magnets when I saw them.

this white mice show in austin was memorably loud

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y176/edwardiii/IMG00544-20100319-1706.jpg

at least until the cops showed

bands being macho about loudness is the dumbest thing

unless the music is acoustic, like a brass band, and the loudness comes from lungs and muscles and technique, not from deaf sound guys.

Dinosaur Jr/MBV double bill was the loudest show I've ever seen, but the most punishing show was A Tribe Called Quest on the Midnight Marauders tour. The bass was so heavy it was making me nauseous. There were people throwing up in trash cans. The venue asked them to turn it down and they called the audience pussies and didn't change a thing. We ended up leaving before the encore; the few minutes of quiet made things start settling back down and I was afraid more bass would cause me to lose it.

Quietest was undoubtedly Belle and Sebastian, Manchester Town Hall 1997(?), where they were barely audible at all. A tape is in circulation (recorded by me) that I used to see getting quality ratings of C- on tape-trading sites, and I'd get all defensive "it wasn't me, it was the fucking band!"

seeing Low open for Swans once was kind of the ultimate in extremes.

I've seen Sunn O)))) since my post upthread, and was surprised that they weren't the new loudness standard. But that Jesus Lizard show would be hard to beat.

I listened to Sunn O with earplugs for a few minutes, but ditched them and only had muffled hearing for an hour or so after the show. The thorax-rattling bass frequencies were more impressive than the volume.

only time i've ever thought i'd damaged my hearing at a gig was listening, w/out earplugs, to maryanne amacher perform at the arches in glasgow. it wasn't just loud, it was the high rippling frequences she used, literally ear-piercing. my ears were singing/ringing for days afterwards, until my hearing subsided back to the 'normal' low-level hiss and whistle.

Lightning Bolt for me. Painful, just painful. Plus I got my glasses/nose broken as well.

^^^
Normal low level hiss and whistle.

Sadly otm.

Lightning Bolt for me. Painful, just painful. Plus I got my glasses/nose broken as well.

― Darren Huckerby (Dwight Yorke), Monday, December 6, 2010 1:12 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

yow, sounds horrible. i don't think i've ever been more entertained by a band than lightning bolt, and though they're always loud, i've never suffered for it.

I loved it though. My own fault for being literally wedged between the two Brians!

A Sunny Day in Glasgow - I put my hands over my ears a couple times even with earplugs. Then again I was standing about 2 feet away from the speakers.

I mean, A Place to Bury Strangers. JUST a tad bit different.

The Killers

It was awful

Either the mighty 3d's or Public Enemy. Could still feel these gigs ringing in my ears the next day.

no way to know, but Sunn O)))), Khanate and My Bloody Valentine come to mind.

Six By Seven were colossal

The volume of GZA's vocals was the most painful, I think. Also - Compulsion around, er 1992/3? Anyone remember them? Haswell & Hecker also hurt.

The obvious: Swans, MBV, Whitehouse. I've seen Mogwai countless times and they've never really seemed that loud to me. Odd.

Iggy in a smallish club in San Diego in '84(?). I have tinnitus.

MBV at Liberty Lunch in the '90s was JUST RIGHT.

Black Dice at ATP NY in '09 was stupidly loud. You could see dust from the rafters coming down. In fact just about anyone who's played at ATP NY is crazily loud. Anyone not using earplugs there is going to have serious hearing problems later in life.

Probably Pantera.

there's clearly massive variants btw bands who like it loud, and a crap sound system/ engineers who make it that way by accident. i mean i didn't find MBV loud at all really in a painful sense on the 08 tour although technically it was loud *per se* but i found Suede at their recent Manchester reformation show painfully, unbearably shrill and grating at a couple of points despite loving the gig.
can't believe people were *throwing up* at a Tribe Called Quest show! surely you could sue afterwards.

Godspeed you black emperor in 2000: efrim retrieves a roll of toilet paper backstage and proceeds to distribute portions to the front row (many of whom were covering their ears die to his high pitched loud-ass-hell screwdriver-as-guitar-bow magic)

out of curiosity, what would the effect be on one's hearing be from touring as a member of say mbv? i can't imagine the level of tinnitus that a musician in a band like that must have.

[remarks about bands trying to be "da loudest", as being macho/stupid/irresponsible]

i can remember being utterly disappointed by the low dB level at a prodigy gig.
hoped they would turn on a second set of pa's when they play poison.

xp bob mould got such severe tinnitus that he would fall asleep with tv snow on full blast to drown out the ringing in his ears. I heard one of the dudes in mission of Burma had it so bad he wore firing range earmuffs (or whatever they're called) on stage at some point during their reformation.

Oh yeah, I forgot about seeing Bob Mould's "Black Sheets of Rain" tour, my ears felt water logged four a good four days after.

Same with the Scorpions, "Love at First Sting" tour.

Old.

Yellow Swans were amazingly loud the last time i saw them in 05.

when i saw Angel Blood a couple of years ago, i was sure my hearing was gone forever. those cats knew how to WAIIIIILLLL

I heard one of the dudes in mission of Burma had it so bad he wore firing range earmuffs (or whatever they're called) on stage at some point during their reformation.

Roger Miller wore those for years, surely since the band first broke up. He was just wearing earplugs on their most recent tour, though with a plexiglass screen in front of the drum kit to protect him from the bombast, presumably.

I also saw Envy at that ATP in 2008, though I don't remember them being as loud as that - of course, I was wearing earplugs.

roger both plexiglass and earmuffs when i saw them in 2004. they initially stopped playing because of his hearing problems, right?

stage volume is very different than the volume out front (hopefully it's lower, but sometimes it's worse if the monitors are blasting). either way, gotta wear those plugs.

Lightning Bolt - you pair of absolute bastards. I thought it was just me, but there seems to be plenty of mention up thread too.

I had tinnitus for 5 days and thought it was permanent damage initially.

Honourable mention to the Dutch band, Gore - surely one of the first math- rock=== instrumental bands ever. They stick in my mind as being extremely loud as do Swans, who I saw around the same time. I was a very impressionable young idiot.

the most pain caused has been by, of all bands, Fleet Foxes at the Roundhouse

don't worry -- this applies to many of us without hearing damage as well

Black Dice at ATP NY in '09 was stupidly loud. You could see dust from the rafters coming down.

agree w/ this, it was NUTS ^^

other stuff: mogwai circa 2003 a couple times (they've gotten quieter in recent years; or else my hearing's just a bit worse?), MBV at ATP NY 08, then the following year in ATX; dinosaur jr.; a place to bury strangers

all shows where i felt like i could swim through the soundwaves in the air, they were so thick and palpable

out of curiousity, does anyone actually like it that loud?

I don't - find it very annoying. Never been prepared to give MBV a proper go for that very reason (ilx heresy I know). their show at Primavera ('09 I think?) was astonishingly loud for an outdoor event. There were a lot of extremely loud acts that weekend actually - I'm pretty sure the sound engineers couldn't resist using all that extra volume that I'm sure MBV demanded.

MGMT in the academy in Dublin was also v v loud - think there was a lot of over-compressed backing track...

Actually. Kraftwerk at the Festival Hall was staggeringly loud - we were sitting in the 2nd row, and you could hear your whole body shake. Person I was with had to go and stand at the back of the hall. But there was no ear-ring the next morning - maybe because the sound was so clean and spacious, with no wall of noise.

Feel you whole body shake, obv. Not hear.

really??? i was there too - admittedly nearer the back - and it was one of the v quiestest gigs i've ever been to. def cld've been a LOT louder.

sometimes i DO like it insanely loud - the adrenaline rush that a wall of noise generates is prob the closest i'll ever come to the thrill of an extreme sport - but obv it depends on the group and what they do - drone needs to overwhelm you, invade yr body, but don't see the point of yr standard indie rock group being face-meltingly loud

Oh yeah, upfront it was staggering. I don't think they were playing through a PA though, were they? They had these two suitcase-sized speakers - presumably of their own construction - at the sides of the stage and that seemed to be it. We were 15 feet from one of those. If it had been any louder I'd have gone home.

Cheap Trick, Pearl Jam and Black Crowes, all at different times in the Fox Theater in Atlanta, of all places. Strange that it would be so loud in that place but all three, you saw the drummers hammering away but you couldn't hear any of them, no sense of tempo at all. Unpleasant.

Was going to see Husker Du at Liberty Lunch back in the mid-'80s and a friend told me since they were so painfully loud he'd get us up on stage to stand behind the guy who was mixing monitors; maybe we'd get a little less volume. Didn't help--it was just ridiculous.

out of curiousity, does anyone actually like it that loud?

I think the enjoyment of extreme volume diminishes with age. When I was young I loved it, but now I just end up worried about what permanent damage I'm doing to my hearing, even with ear plugs in. Especially as hearing problems run in my family.

No, don't enjoy it loud. The only benefit of extreme volume is that you can't hear wankers talking all the way through the show.

Yeah if you're getting hearing damage with earplugs something is definitely wrong. I wear them because it's often physically painful to go without them and usually it does sound a bit better. I think my hearing is extra sensitive though since there are always plenty of people ahead of me that seem to have no problem with the loudness. Sometimes I feel if I were up front with no earplugs I'd just be deaf ten minutes in. The downside is that you really do feel like a whiny bitch if you wear the plugs. People give you dirty looks. I don't really care but it's just uncomfortable when people scowl at you because you want to protect your hearing.

I think the enjoyment of extreme volume diminishes with age.

yes, but from time to time i experience certain situations of total bliss & euphoria where i would generously trade some of my hearing abilities for...say,
standing in front of DynamixII playing Machine Planet with >140db.
besides, nowadays hi-tec hearing aids can look great.
http://s5.directupload.net/images/101209/x2n8dngk.jpg

i am not talking about drug induced effects

Motorhead by quite a large margin. On 2 seperate occasions I saw them be so loud that it had an alnmost hallucinogenic effect one me, once especially because they were really on it, and the rush from the music + the rush from the volume took me to some other mental space altogether. Probably told the story before, but the next day I was sat next to a telephone and I could not hear it ringing, that part of the frequency spectrum of my hearing was just completely missing. Back to "normal" in a couple of days.

Lousest shit band I've seen would be a joint prize between Loop and Sonic Youth, buth irredeemably lame and slack. If a good band cranked up loud is a great rush, then a shit band loud is the ultimate musical bum-out.

Soul Asylum (I know, weird, but trust me . . . ) during highschool in a tiny club
Pleasurehorse at Fort Thunder (ultra-high frequency power electronics through a BIG Marshall stack)
Sunnno)))/Boris Halloween show
recent shows that were loud as fuck:
Bloody Panda / Monarch
Swans

Mark Stewart and the Mafia in Bristol a few years back were insanely loud (bordering on painful), made all the more so with Adrian Sherwood doing his ear blistering tweaks/overdubs.

Prior to that : Swans - Leeds Poly on the Children of God tour.

Nomeansno were the loudest band I've ever seen in a club. I experienced pretty dramatic hearing loss for a couple of days after that. I was a little bummed, because I was standing around outside after the gig and Rob Wright was out there too, just chillin', but I was in no state to carry on a conversation. But the show fucking rocked.

Lousest shit band I've seen would be a joint prize between Loop and Sonic Youth, buth irredeemably lame and slack. If a good band cranked up loud is a great rush, then a shit band loud is the ultimate musical bum-out.

― Pashmina, Thursday, December 9, 2010 2:03 AM (43 minutes ago) Bookmark

whoa, you saw loop?

Yeah. They played at least twice at Newcastle Riverside, I missed them the previous time, supposedly they were rocking, the time I saw them was the tour supporting their third album and the entire set was like waiting for the intro to end and the band to kick into gear, the drummer played this everlasting fill on his toms, like IDDLEiddleIDDLEiddleIDDLEiddle and on and on and on. I dig Loop's albums loads, even after all these years, but that show was awful, a real bummer.

And, they were filthy loud! If they'd rocked it would have been fantastic.

Soul Asylum (I know, weird, but trust me . . . ) during highschool in a tiny club
Pleasurehorse at Fort Thunder (ultra-high frequency power electronics through a BIG Marshall stack)
Sunnno)))/Boris Halloween show
recent shows that were loud as fuck:
Bloody Panda / Monarch
Swans

― the tune is space, Thursday, December 9, 2010 5:07 AM (7 hours ago) Bookmark

I saw shawn from pleasurehorse last year doing a set through 10 tiny speakers set on individual stands, it was a pretty tortuous high end washout without earplugs. a guy I was with got so freaked out he had to leave!

(do I know you?)

never mind you are dr3w and I collect my $5

I think it might have been the Butthole Surfers circa 1989 in a small, narrow club. Anyway I remember that as a particularly severe beating. The visual elements were also a big part of the effect.

Big Black.

@pashmina

that's awesome. would like to hear their cover of 'pink moon'

I can confirm loop were a bunch of terrible fucking dullards live

anybody know what the members of loop are up to now?

-Sunn 0))) (even with ear protection four days on, the tinnitus is killing me. Magnificent gig mind).
-MBV
-Swans

those are literally the three artists everyone says

acts, even

Predictable maybe, but true.

Now I think about it Isolée was absolutely deafening at a club in The Hague a few years back

Flying Lotus. So loud I literally couldn't hear wtf was going on and left (it was at ATP so someone else was on).

Six By Seven (at the LA2)
Napalm Death (at the old Marquee)
Sunn O))) as well, but it's a different kind of loud; a sort of body-consciousness loud.

Not to derail the thread, but has anyone been to a show where speakers *actually* blew out Back-To-The-Future-style?

Twice: Borbetomagus, and Khanate. Both at Tonic.

Hahaha, I saw Khanate at Tonic and the dust was like flopping off the brick walls and landing on me

I've seen plenty of SunnO))) and Swans shows, but I still think Black Dice at ATP and certain Melvins nights may have taken the cake for me

hank williams jr.

Borbetomagus

oh, and also: earthless (luna lounge, cmj, circa 2007)

Six By Seven in 2007 may we be my answer too

oddly, procol harum were freaking loud at the cw post dome. grand hotel tour. i think steeleye span opened; i wish i could go back in time and see that one again. i'd bring plugs.

Battles at Supersonic '07, the bass was so loud it gave me mild but permanent tinnitus in my right ear. I was trapped by the crowd right next to the PA, which didn't help obviously, but I didn't have the same problem with more outright hostile bands like Oxbow

Hahaha, I saw Khanate at Tonic and the dust was like flopping off the brick walls and landing on me

Yeah, I saw Sunn O))) there (with Chrome Hoof and Sunburned Hand of the Man) and it was like a gentle rain from the ceiling all night.

you guys should check out strep torso if you get a chance. he's a hoot! he filled my basement with amps when he played at the store. lovely smell of burning wires after he was done. still not as loud as The Body when they played in my basement, but he got pretty damn loud.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1WRxhjGuZM

this was actually the last time i really feared for my ears at the store though. my pal jeff making the walls bleed. i ran for some plugs. overwhelmingly loud given the size of the store.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-woo46kDNc

sounded awesome though.

apparently 誤訳侮辱, Whiney & i mighta been at the same Khanate show! (s.o'm was a coworker, supernice guy)

othwise bloody valentine

this was actually the last time i really feared for my ears at the store though. my pal jeff making the walls bleed. i ran for some plugs. overwhelmingly loud given the size of the store.

He never fails to bleed walls.

Helmet opening for Sonic Youth in 93
Astro/Solmania (not sure which was loudest, I was outside) in 2007 (?)

Black Dice or Deerhunter

are we accounting for venue size here? I can't remember how loud Jucifer actually are.

idk but Swans weren't that loud when I saw them ... nowhere near as loud as those Japanese noise acts I mentioned

Unsane at CBGB in the 90s. Decent show but damn, tinnitus for weeks.

Is there a connection between loudness and Blowing the Other Band off the Stage? Like, there must be acts who use volume purely to distract from a dull performance?

On that subject:

They make a hell of a racket for a two-piece.

...and they make a hell of a racket for three people.

Do some reviewers really not understand what an amp does? Not to say that a review shouldn't mention if a concert is really loud, but "hell of a racket" often seems like a cliché/filler sentence.

Anyway, to answer the question, probably some no-mark band at Donington. But I hear the Ting Tings are pretty loud.

Tricky (97)
Whitehouse (08)
Spectrum (08)

I saw Tricky in '97 too - don't remember him being particularly loud, but maybe Irving Plaza has stricter volume restrictions than wherever you were. I do remember him performing in total darkness.

total darkness indeed, and loud too, extremely loud. saw him that year in lisbon

I saw Tricky in the fall of '98. Not very loud, and in a not-very-large venue.

fwiw, openers Whale blew him off the stage (and were no louder, but were far more intense).

whale rule.

daft punk was really loud idk otherwise i dont go 2 noize shows

The Sunn O))) show I saw in Atlanta was loud, but not in my top 5 loudest.

merzbow

High On Fire, one of their earlier tours, where they played to almost no-one except this one dude standing in the middle of the floor, grinning, fingers in his ears.

My Bloody Valentine that last tour. As they were about the begin and we all put in our plugs, my one metal friend paused. "Aren't you going to wear earplugs?" I asked. "I want to see how loud it is first," he answered. Thirty seconds passed. "Yeah, it's loud," he said, putting in his plugs.

Nine Inch Nails "Downward Spiral" arena tour. Ears rang for days.

Metallica 1997, Poor Touring Me tour (with the collapsing stage). Convinced this is the one that hurt my wife's ears enough that she rarely goes to shows with me.

I recall one Mogwai set that sounded like a plane taking off.

Lol I was just coming here to post HoF. They blew my earlobes off last year. Guitars like chainsaws.

Ex Models, at a small local club. it was a three piece, with kid millions on drums. very loud, and very effective (muddled properly)

Thrones, in somebody's basement. Sandy, Utah. with a bunch of high school kids, it was awesome.

MBV (obligatory), in 2009? Santa Monica, California. the sound was mixed properly for the venue.

more recently, Autechre at the Bluebird theater, Denver, Colorado. it was loud, but very clean/clear. didn't need earplugs for most of their set.

Ween, back in the 90s, at a local club. it destroyed my ears.

loudest band i have ever seen was ruins. at one point it was so loud it was giving me weird visual side effects.

Hijokaidan!
― jed_ (jed), Friday, 28 April 2006 18:35 (9 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Back in the day it was definitely Killing Joke.

when No Age was touring with the guy doing live samples, that was pretty amazingly loud.
Otherwise MBV (obligatory) and the Replacements.

Not a band as such, but Squarepusher was exceedingly noisy the other week.

Winnebago Deal
...and Mansun

Saw MBV and Swans too and they were loud, obviously, and I had my own earplugs and they handed them out at the shows too, but Embrace in 1997 and 2000 were probably just as loud, and everyone I've ever seen at The Cavern in Exeter has left my ears ringing for days afterwards, probably just by dint of it being a sweaty stone cellar.

Like many others my previous answer (Black Flag, Curve, and Yes) is revised to MBV. If I had to pick any one show it would be the one at the El Rey where someone had a seizure during the soundcheck.

All of which does beg the question, does the volume serve the music? I remember a My Bloody Valentine gig in Belfast round '89/90, having badgered a group a friends to accompany me making all sorts of outlandish (but justified) claims for their music. There was the mosh-pit and then a gap with most of the rest the audience cowering at the back of the hall. The gorgeous melodies under the noise got lost. There were times I barely recognised the tunes. I got some frosty looks during a post-gig party.

With other bands, like Sunn O))) the physicality of the volume made more sense somehow. Feeling it in your bones.

Black Dice at ATP

at the 2011 Animal Collective ATP? I recall feeling that the entire inside of my head felt it was going to vibrate into dust.

Motorhead at First Avenue

Or maybe that one early 00s noise band where the dudes wore Donny Darko type creepy Rabbit heads? Can't think of the name

does the volume serve the music?

there is definitely such a thing as 'too loud'. I was at a Cannibal Corpse show once where the volume was painfully loud to the point of damaging and while I had a good time, my ears paid for it (I should use earplugs).

same thing with Noisem once - they requested their volume be pumped up, and it made their music incomprehensible to the point of me not giving a shit.

mbv / boredoms were predictably loud as fuck on the occasions i've seen them live but, less predictably, prince and 3rdeyegirl were also super-loud when i saw them in glasgow last year, enough that some feebs next to us left after a few songs

Or maybe that one early 00s noise band where the dudes wore Donny Darko type creepy Rabbit heads? Can't think of the name

― Amira, Queen of Creativity (upper mississippi shakedown), Thursday, November 26, 2015 10:02 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

White Mice?