loudest band you've ever seen

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.

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?