Tickets for the Stooges‘ Detroit show go on sale in just a few hours. Sadly, I will not be buying any. I can’t spare the cash, and even if I could, I highly doubt I’ll still be living here two months from now.
It’s slightly disappointing, but the reality is that I just don’t enjoy live shows that much. I absolutely detest going through security and getting searched, and I REALLY don’t enjoy being disarmed in such a potentially dangerous environment.
Besides, at least 80% of the concerts I’ve seen were completely ruined by over-amplification. It’s amazing to me that so many “professional” soundmen have no concept of headroom. They just crank everything up to 11, a la Nigel Tufnel, and puncture everyone’s eardrums with grossly distorted, unintelligible garbage. But it’s really goddamned LOUD, so it must be GOOD, right?!?
And after all, I did see the Stooges a few years ago when they were in town.
I even have that show on DVD.
And they don’t play anything off of Raw Power anymore.
So really, missing this show isn’t that big a deal.
Ah hell, maybe I should get tickets after all…
I feel your pain, I am a audio engineer and quite frankly its scary to hear some of these shows. In the past few years it has been getting better and I am fairly certin it will continue to do so. The problem is that a lot of those guys are deaf or missing a lot of hearing range. The old rock and roll guys like iggy will tend to be louder, mainly becuase the thinking there is louder is better. Unfortunatly in some of the newer bands you also have total idiots like staind who are constantly trying to sett the world record for loudest concert. The good thing about that though is that they are going to go deaf and hopefully go away sooner rather than later.
I work with a company that tends to deal with quieter artists so its much more pleasant.
You think you don’t like it? Think about having to deal with it every night…
I’m guessing iggy is old school louder than God, check out his rider on the smoking gun (Its a good one) Another thing to remember is that its not always the engineers choice. The Artist tends to be responsible for excessive SPL, If not the artist themselves its the management. I’d take Norah Jones or Sarah MacLachlan any day over a metal tour.
Hey, thanks for the comment and the inside scoop. I didn’t realize that the artists and management actually WANT the shows to be that loud.
I’m careful with my hearing when I shoot (I always wear muffs on top of plugs) and I always feel like an idiot when I go to a concert and realize I don’t have plugs on me.