Went to see Buddy Guy last night. He was entertaining, but the sound was atrocious. The overall volume was way too high for the room and Guy's guitar was so loud in the mix, and its high end so pronounced, that when he played a lead the sound became a sheet of painful screeching agony. Mrs went out to the lobby after two songs, I stuck it out for another two before giving up.
I've kindof stopped going to live shows, after wrecking my ears at the Feelies show last year. But I thought this would be fine, since it was at the Raleigh Memorial Auditorium, where they tend to keep the volume reasonable and the sound is usually pretty good (it's where the NC Symphony and Carolina Ballet perform). But nope. Not this time.
Yeah, there are too many kids on my lawn, but maybe bands should hire sound guys who aren't stone deaf.
Jonny Lang opened, and played about 45 minutes too long. He had the same sound issues, but I was hoping that was just because all opening bands get shitty sound.
Had a good burger at Chuck's, before, though. We split a five dollar milk shake, so we got to talk about Pulp Fiction for a while.
Good movie.
I went to a Graham Coxon gig 5 years ago and I swear my ears have never been the same since. They were ringing for days and I have heard a faint, high-pitched hum ever since.
It was a great gig though.
when i got out of that Feelies show, every sound was distorted. listening to the radio on my way home, everything above a whisper would break up as if i was overdriving a small cheap speaker.
luckily, that went away.
but that ringing. yep. i gots it.
My ears are still ringing from a Fishbone concert I went to in ’92. The bass was turned up so loud, it was all anybody could hear.
Why are so many sound engineers (sorry, “people working the sound board,” doesn’t make them engineers) so awful? Why do they have so little idea what makes for enjoyable listening? I don’t care if you’re listening to James Taylor or the Melvins, you need some sense of balance and
[kids/lawn warning]
you need to turn it down a notch!
my guess is that making a career of doing concert sound destroys a person’s ears. so, after a while, a sound guy really has no idea what his mix sounds like to people with normal hearing.
Its stupid I know but I have a really good quality pair of ear plugs that I always bring with. They tend to filter out a bit more of the high end so its not a perfect solution but I have found it can be the difference between a reasonably good experience the the sort of hell you describe. Probably wouldn’t have help if the mixing sucked that bad but it would be worth the try.
Saw Buddy at his place in Chicago a few years ago & it was a great show, sorry about this hot mess.
i usually bring earplugs to small club shows. i just didn’t think to bring them to this place. and they weren’t selling them (unlike most small clubs around here do).
oh well!
I think Dinosaur Jr. gave me a constant ringing sometime in the 90’s. Didn’t help that I was right in the front standing next to the Marshall stack. Lately, I only go to either really, really small club shows which have reasonable sound (saw Stan Ridgway last year in a club with 60 other people) or outside shows where the sound is actually pretty good.
Pardon the late reply, but since I work at the joint I have to clear up a couple of things:
NC Symphony performs almost always in Meymandi Hall (the new-ish joint adjoining Memorial Auditorium, west side) except for when they play The Nutcracker in that Old Barn, or do road trips to Chapel Hill, Fayetteville and other locales in Cackalacky. They rock, check ’em out.
The Old Barn’s acoustics are woeful. In my 2+ years of working concerts there I’ve noticed what you mentioned as reasonable volume mixage, but occasionally a band’s sound guy feels the need to “see what this thing can do” and ruins it for everyone. Jane’s Addiction wallowed in over-modulated mush for half their show until their board wizard finally got it right and toned it down.
Now Fletcher Opera House (home to Carolina Ballet) standing to the east of the Ol’ Barn, that’s a fine concert venue! At 600 seats you can’t go wrong, but don’t sit in the upper boxes–chiropractic care can be pricey.
NC Symphony performs almost always in Meymandi Hall (the new-ish joint adjoining Memorial Auditorium, west side) except for when they play The Nutcracker
heh. last time i saw them do anything else must have been before was before Meymandi was built. and i’ve seen the Nutcracker a couple of times since. guess that was why i thought they still played there.
Meymandi is better, for sure.