How LOUD were the classic rock bands??

I remember some very loud bands. And I used to avoid standing by the speakers.

I also remember that temporary loss of hearing after the concert. (It's still temporarily lost)
I remember some of the band members wore ear plugs. They were not so dumb.

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BUT... The Grateful Dead starting in the early to mid 70's had the BEST stadium sound system of them all. They cared and I think some Alembic folks helped set them up. Man they had pure clean power and lots of cabs. They defined the state-of-the-art sound system standards as far as I'm concerned.


They also had a great following of ' Deadheads ' . LOL
When the Dead played, it was party time.
 
Two loudest bands I saw back in the day were Slade & Motorhead. Both blistering volume freaks, & completely ruined the gigs accordingly IMO. By contrast, & in the same time period, Sad Cafe were touring with the most delightful rig. By comparison to everyone else, their sound was positively powerful lounge hi fi. 18K of flown Bose with 40K ground stack Gauss, all on delays. The very early predecessor of line array. Glorious!
 
Loudest band I ever herd? AC/DC at the Mayfair, Newcastle in the 70s. It was a medium sized underground venue. I was playing in a band at the time and loved loud music but that gig was just OTT. Standing in front of them my vision was blurring with the volume, literally. Eventually we were up on the balcony behind the band to make it bearable. Happy days.
 
Shoot, I need bigger drums. And thank god for 2 channel amps and gain and volume controls. The guys I play with don't even turn up the master volume above 4 and it's LOUD!

I play a 10, 12, 16, 22, 14x6.5 tama SilverStar kit and I play with marching sticks. I use 20" A med. crash, 21" A cust. 20th ann. ride as a crash and a thick 20" zbt ride. I really want some 2002s and a kit with 12, 14, 16, 18, and 26 sized drums. I feel like I wouldn't have to lay into them quite as aggressively as smaller drums.
 
Oh, loudest band I've seen was Helmet at a small club in Nashville. John Stanier, my ears are still ringing, dude. Awesome show, though. Yeah, I'm young. I wish I had been able to see those 70s heavy rock acts. That's the era I really identify with.
 
I experienced a rather strange phenomenon at a show recently. It was a collection of stoner rock/doom bands at a club in Boston. These bands were deafening, which is pretty much how I prefer my music, so I was cool with it. Standing at the front of the stage, maybe 6 feet from the kit, the snare was almost inaudible. But when you walked back by the sound booth the mix came in an everything sounded pretty good. At first I though it was just the drummer hitting lightly, but it was the same with every band. Pretty strange, I am a front of the stage kind of guy and I have never experienced that before.
 
One thing that I found very impressive was the new world record for crowd roar. According to the Guinness Book of World Records the loudest crowd roar at a sports stadium is 142.2 dbA and was achieved by fans of the Kansas City Chiefs (USA), at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, Missouri, USA, on 29 September 2014.

While I was not at this particular game, I have been to many Chiefs' games and have been in Arrowhead Stadium when it is at its loudest. It is very very loud no doubt but with the open air stadium it is not as loud to my ears as indoor rock concerts I have attended. I don't know how to explain it but Arrowhead Stadium loud is a different kind of loud than Deep Purple loud...

MM
 
While I was not at this particular game, I have been to many Chiefs' games and have been in Arrowhead Stadium when it is at its loudest. It is very very loud no doubt but with the open air stadium it is not as loud to my ears as indoor rock concerts I have attended. I don't know how to explain it but Arrowhead Stadium loud is a different kind of loud than Deep Purple loud...

MM

It probably has to do with pressure waves from being indoors vs outdoors. Those pressure waves can really stress your ear drums and increase the pain factor making it feel louder than it really is.

I'm not sure why bands feel the need to have the volume so loud that the music is almost inaudible. Honestly, turn it down a bit. Let people enjoy the music and put on a rocking show for them. That's what they came for. They didn't buy the tickets so they could get tinnitus.
 
Actually 200 watt heads, and especially in the case of Ritchie Blackmore who used factory modded MARSHALL MAJORS that approached 300 watts.





Effortless feedback was desired, to prevent it, a technique that mutes the strings has to be mastered.





I believe John Bonham's signature PROMUCO drumsticks were 5B weighted.

There's a pair of Bonzos sticks along with a Ludwig 402 on the wall of the London Hard Rock Cafe,...both signed by Bonzo....Ludwig 2B's.

Steve B
 
Actually 200 watt heads, and especially in the case of Ritchie Blackmore who used factory modded MARSHALL MAJORS that approached 300 watts.





Effortless feedback was desired, to prevent it, a technique that mutes the strings has to be mastered.





I believe John Bonham's signature PROMUCO drumsticks were 5B weighted.

There's a pair of Bonzos sticks along with a Ludwig 402 on the wall of the London Hard Rock Cafe,...both signed by Bonzo....Ludwig 2B's.

The loudest show I have ever been to in the 70's,was the Who,folloewd very closely by Grand Funk Railroad.The loudest ever,was Springsteen at Giants Stadium.So loud my hearing wasn't the same for days.

Steve B
 
Spinal Tap was one of England's loudest bands. I got to fill in for their drummer during the Shark Sandwich tour, after he died in a bizarre gardening accident.
 
It's not so much that the bands themselves got incredibly louder, but the FOH systems that The Beatles never got to make use of (and desperately needed) went absolutely nuclear during that period.

Yeah, bands did get somewhat louder, but really, even going to a 26/14/16/18 kit with heavier cymbals doesn't get you that much more volume over a 22/10/12/14 setup with lighter cymbals, and not at all once everything is mic'd up and put thru the mains.

Loudest show I ever saw was Scratch Acid in a club and dude's bass drum coming thru the FOH nearly shattered my skeleton and gave me a wicked panic attack! Great show!

Even without big sound systems, the majority of rock bands (classic or otherwise) are inherently louder than the bands covering them in bars. I've read a lot about other musicians complaining about how loud drummers are, but it seems to me that the reality is that the songs being covered were recorded at volumes much louder than what they're being reproduced at by bar bands.
 
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Remember, the guitarists were playing 100 watt heads with no master volume. Often times multiple heads to project the sound because the PA systems sucked. In one of my bands the guitarists play vintage Ampegs and Marshalls and the sound at practice is deafening. I could play whatever bass drum I wanted and there is no way I would wash out the guitars.

I didn't read all of the replies, but yeah. The guitar amps back then were clean, clean, clean until they were cranked up to unGodly levels to get the distortion we all know and love.

I've owned a non-master volume Marshall and people would be shocked at the volume it has to be to distort. I watch those old Led Zep videos where they were playing live on a TV show and young hippy kids were sitting around watching. I can't even begin to imagine how loud that was where they were sitting.
 
Shoot, I need bigger drums.
I play a 10, 12, 16, 22, 14x6.5 tama SilverStar kit and I play with marching sticks.

My opinion is that bigger drums won't help you be louder. In fact it might decrease the volume of your drums.

Read every post in this thread: http://www.drummerworld.com/forums/showthread.php?t=119820

Tune your drums to a higher tone. "Boing".
Un-dampen your bass drum.
I used to set up my drums on a rug. When I removed the rug my drums got a lot louder. Set up your kit on a large piece of plywood.

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There's a pair of Bonzos sticks along with a Ludwig 402 on the wall of the London Hard Rock Cafe,...both signed by Bonzo....Ludwig 2B's.

Steve B


... for Hard Rock Cafe.

Jeff Ocheltree confirms Bonzo used a medium weight stick (5B). In the 60's a 5B would've been considered a heavier drum set stick.
 
My opinion is that bigger drums won't help you be louder. In fact it might decrease the volume of your drums.

Read every post in this thread: http://www.drummerworld.com/forums/showthread.php?t=119820

Tune your drums to a higher tone. "Boing".
Un-dampen your bass drum.
I used to set up my drums on a rug. When I removed the rug my drums got a lot louder. Set up your kit on a large piece of plywood.

.

Thanks, Jim. I do tune high because of this issue. I want the body of a larger diameter drum tuned higher. I think that's what I'm really after. I already use an uncut reso I will just take out my foam muffling.

Really, I just don't like the smaller drum sizes and the 18" deep bass drums drive me nuts (sound and space wise). I like 14" and 16" max.
 
1979 I saw Van Halen, in an ice hockey arena (Hey its Canada) The band was set up on one end of the "ice" I was at the other, and I can still remember how the pant legs of my bell bottoms vibrated when they opened with "Running with the Devil"
 
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