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jaggerman
ACDC by a long shot

didnt think music could be played that loud

I went to a show on their last tour, and it was the loudest event I've ever witnessed. My right ear got the brunt of it.

Hello,

Well, it was Motorhead at the Manch Apollo back in 2002...then I experienced the literally insane volume of Suicide, who were supporting Iggy & The Stooges over two or three nights at the Hammersmith/Carling/Labatts/O2 Apollo/Odeon.

I had to leg it to the bar after two minutes. And even in the bar you couldn't hear f**k all! Bit pointless, really...

Cheers,

Simon.

Neil Young and Crazy Horse - 1990
Lou Reed - 2000

Motörhead Glasgow 83 - My first ever gig at age 12. I couldn't hear a thing at school for a whole week after.

AC/DC - Kemper Arena 1996 and Metallica - Mandalay Bay Events Center 2009

The Who 1975 in Dusseldorf, front row, Pete`s side. Muted hearing for two days running, which was convenient at lessons in school.
Ted Nugent in the seventies. He was wearing earplugs, not me.
Motorhead, ACDC and a thousand more shows in the coming decades.
Loudest Stones show was Hockenheim, I think 1995.
Along with the headphone habit, it gave me damaged hearing - the high frequencies are almost gone.
Don´t regret it, though. So much fun.

Motorhead scare the shit out of people.

I've seen Motorhead a couple of times and they are far from being the loudest show.

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franzk
I've seen Motorhead a couple of times and they are far from being the loudest show.

Far from it??

Nonsense.

Look at how many people have posted them. Are they the loudest now? Probably not but, given the length of their career and the number of shows they do (well over 100, year-in, year-out for almost 40 years), they are CLEARLY one of the loudest of all-time.

I suppose you're just trying to be a hipster and pretend there are hundreds of little-known bands out there who routinely play louder.

Le Trabendo

Never seen any of the metal bands, but The Who (1971) Mahavishnu Orchestra (1972), and Zappa Plays Zappa (2007) were the earblasters for me.

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batcave
The Ramones at the Channel Club in Boston. Nothing even comes close to it. For a couple of days after, it felt like I had cotton in my ears and I was really afraid it was going to be permanent. Though it cleared up, I'm sure that there was some lasting effect from it...

Yeah, Ramones in Minneapolis in May 1983. It was real loud. The first 3 or 4 songs were amazing. Then I realized my ears were hurting and had to go outside for a while to give the ears a break. That wasn't the loudest show, but it was plenty loud, loud enough to cause pain. The loudest was probably The Professionals at the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago around the same time, or maybe 84, before The Jam. My friend and I both could feel our ear drums crackling back and forth. Scary.

PIL at the Manchester Apollo around 1983 - deaf as a post for 2 days...
...but I still think of the Keith intro on Start Me Up at Leeds 1982 - I was drilled 2 feet underground in 10 seconds flat!

Crosby Stills Nash -- Hyannis Mass Cape Cod Melody Tent-- an actual tent-- no acoustics-- they tried to make up for it with volume- came out electric with full band-- blew my ears out in the 1st song--couldn't hear shit the rest of the night--

pretenders- 81 smu
rainbow- rhode island

Hot Tuna at Santa Cruz Civic in 1976. Deaf for days.

Sting when Darryl Jones was his bassist. Had seats right next to speaker. Friend actually had to have surgery to fix problem.

Neil Young doing he's feedback bit on the last tour at Barclay's brooklyn. My ears ached for days!

Cheap Trick - Roseland, NYC - 1999
Public Image Ltd. - Music Hall, Brooklyn - 2010

Motorhead, by a decent margin.
Other very loud bands that I've seen include Mountain, the Who, the Jam, Dino Jr., and Jesus and Mary Chain.

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jaggerman
ACDC by a long shot

didnt think music could be played that loud

Agree

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keefriff99

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franzk
I've seen Motorhead a couple of times and they are far from being the loudest show.

Far from it??

Nonsense.

Look at how many people have posted them. Are they the loudest now? Probably not but, given the length of their career and the number of shows they do (well over 100, year-in, year-out for almost 40 years), they are CLEARLY one of the loudest of all-time.

I suppose you're just trying to be a hipster and pretend there are hundreds of little-known bands out there who routinely play louder.

As I said the loudest show I've seen was Swans with no doubt. And there were also Mars Volta, System Of A Down, Napalm Death, Slayer, Meshuggah, Slipknot - all of them were much louder than Motorhead and I would not call them little-known.

For years, the band MANOWAR has claimed to be the loudest in the world (they had, f.i., 129db measured in Hanover in 1994, according to Wikipedia); they even made it their first & foremost important achievement (due to the lack of decent songs, I presume.)

Anybody ever seen them?

Nice "war stories" of loud shows here :
[www.talkbass.com]

King Crimson, September 06, 1982, Nijmegen, Netherlands.
Even with fingers in both ears it was a deafening concert.
Earplugs weren't the latest fashion those days.

Another Honorable Mention: Aerosmith, playing a surprise club show at Speaks (the former Action House) on Long Island in 1980. They brought the same PA they were using for arena gigs. Speakers wall to wall and floor to ceiling.

A couple of people have mentioned Neil Young. I have to say the first time I saw him, on the 1978 Rust Never Sleeps tour, I was greatly shocked at how loud it was. Not what I was expecting at all, especially with the very mellow Comes A Time as his current album.

Surprisingly U2 at Frankfurt (360 Tour). It was so insanely loud where i stood that it literally started to hurt after two minutes. i had to move backwards, away from the stage. Considering the faces around me i wasn't the only one who felt it was too loud.

Another surprisingly loud moment: Wings's "Soily" encore from 1976. For that one song, at least, they had to be the loudest band in the world. Left us all looking at one another like, "What the hell was that?"

Motörhead
Swans
Ministry

I'have been lucky so far but nowadays I got earplugs stashed.

Yeah Ministry : I saw them twice (1992 and 2006) and you could feel the
music... ><

Ah, firebird, glad you mentioned U2. Not as loud for me as the Crazy Horse Greendale show I mentioned, but when my wife and I went to the previous U2 tour before 360, it was indeed too loud from where we stood/sat. I had seen U2 a number of times before then, and they were great, but that particular show (in Boston) the sound was not good, and definitely too loud. So we don't think of U2 as a super loud act, but I believe you when you say U2 was one of your loudest shows.