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.

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?