Complete aside here, I missed them when they were here in 2004 for their 20th anniversary tour. The day after their show, I was at the airport and sat down to eat lunch at one of the restaurants there. A few minutes later, a musician with a cart full of band cases with KMFDM stickers on them sat down at the table next to me.
It was Jamie Duffy (RIP) of DJ? Acucrack of who was flying home to Chicago after his last night touring with KMFDM as the North America supporting act. KMFDM was heading off to Australia to continue their tour. He spent most of his time on his phone talking about the show from what I overheard.
I didn’t bother him or anything, but I still thought it was a cool story.
As far as loudest band I’ve ever seen? I’ve seen some pretty damn loud ones (pro tip for live music fans: invest in good ear plugs!) but I don’t think anything compares to Kraftwerk in 2022. It was incredibly loud with some of the deepest bass I’ve ever heard.
Not sure if you’re being flippant or not, but hearing loss is a big deal and self-sabotaging if you’re a music fan.
Low quality earplugs (like the foam crap you get from the drugstore) will indeed muffle sound but make music sound like crap. High-fidelity earplugs are designed to “lower the volume” by 20-25dB without destroying the fidelity of the sound you’re listening to. There’s plenty of really good and inexpensive ($25-45) reusable hi-fi earplugs that you can get (like the Etymotics that @1000YearBan mentiomed). There’s also other good brands like Eargasm and Loop that are inexpensive and work great.
However, if you’re a serious live music enjoyer, I strongly recommend getting musicians’ earplugs from an audiologist. They will take molds of your ear canal and create custom ear plugs that will not only be a perfect fit, but allow for using different filters depending on the amount of noise reduction desired (up to 25dB). (Etymotics makes these filters so you know they are good.) As before, they lower the volume without reducing audio quality and because they are molded to your ear, you can wear them for hours and hours without any discomfort. They are more expensive than off-the-shelf brands (in the $150-200 range all-inclusive) but as someone that attends a lot of shows, I can say it’s well worth it. Even with these earplugs in, I can still carry on a conversation without yelling because the sounds can still come through clearly.
I’ve struggled with tinnitus my entire life (it’s not due to hearing loss), and I love music so I’m very meticulous about doing whatever I can to preserve my hearing. I never go to concerts and in general try to avoid loud environments unless I have hearing protection. My hearing is just too important to me.
Yup. My watch measures ambient sound levels and many concerts I go to range at 100-115dB. That’s well within the “permanent hearing damage” range, especially when sustained for 1 hour or more.
If you don’t care about your hearing and are fine going deaf, you do you. You can count me out.
Finally got a chance to watch this the other day. Not gonna lie, it got me kind of misty eyed. This along with the other Wham! documentary on Netflix are excellent viewing if you like music docs. While Wham! has always been a guilty pleasure of mine, it definitely gave me an expanded appreciation for their contribution to 80’s pop music.
Andrew and George seemed to have a really special relationship. Hearing Andrew being fully cognizant of how George was the true talent among the two of them, and how supportive he was of his solo career is the kind of selfless act you rarely hear of in the music biz. What a mensch.
ETA I love music docs, even for bands I couldn’t care less about just because I find it so fascinating learning how the sausage is made. Sometimes they give me new appreciation for groups I would have previously written off.
Which I interpreted as a different question. (In the context of earplugs muffling sound, which is why some people refuse to wear them.)
Of course it’s not necessary for concerts to be loud or at least that loud, but as to why, there’s no one answer. Sometimes it’s practical (big physical space needs a lot of loud speakers to fill it up), selfish (some bands just want their shows really loud), immersive (loud concerts can be more energizing for the crowd), other factors (some instruments are just loud so everything else needs more amplification so it can be heard).
I’ll be keeping this on my list of human behaviors I don’t understand. Not being rude. It’s just not my thing. Whenever I see an event with big speakers, I know to turn around and leave.
I get the idea of going to a concert, of participating in the shared experience of listening to live music.
What I don’t get is the need for that music to be so loud that you literally can’t hear it any more, and if you don’t have industrial protection, you won’t hear anything afterwards either.
That would be me, too. I loved Yacht Rock: A Dockumentary on HBO
Never a big fan of most of this music genre the first time around, but I thoroughly respect the musicians and their craft. It was a funny and loving tribute. (You must stay for the very end when filmmakers play an audio clip of a certain musician.)
Some years ago I saw “Cave of Forgotten Dreams” in a theater. Not exactly the most raucous blockbuster. But the sound was up so loud, I put my fingers in my ears to get a little protection. That got uncomfortable. So I switched to my earbuds. Those muffled the sound too much, or fell out of my ears. So I just endured the rest of the movie. By the end, the volume appeared to be normal.
When I left the theater, my ears were numb. The world was strangely quiet and kind of relaxing. I thought to myself, “This must be how the world sounds to everyone else.”
Neil Young has pulled out of playing Glastonbury, seems he is more interested in preserving the one-off show (rather than one that is instantly available on the internet) and I can see his point of view. A “you-had-to-be-there” gig is something to be treasured.
