[ricechex]

I would have to say MBV followed by WIRE at Maxwells in Hoboken. Small little club, but wow, i thought the walls would come down.

[sonicl]

I saw Motorhead in quite small venues several times in the late 80s, and they were pretty loud.

Dinosaur Jr in about 1988 too.

More recently, Konono No 1 in the foyer at the Barbican last weekend was pretty damn noisy.

[Glice]

Mogwai's early shows (pre-MYT) were fucking unbelievably loud. Atari Teenage Riot used to break faces with sound well. Keiji Haino in Newcastle last year was ridiculous. I'm not entirely sure anything needs to be that loud. They were handing out earplugs at the beginning and telling people to not ever think about being a hero and not using the ear plugs.

[screamingskull]

interpol -dec '04

ive had tinnitus ever since.

[Savage Clone]

MBV
Haino
Cows
A few Bardo Pond shows
and Ride in 1990.

[porkmarras]

Mogwai in their prime were fantastically loud but the crown goes to Bradford Bahamas for the horrific racket that they produced the first time i saw them.So loud you could almost see the cracks on the glasses at the bar.The crowd mostly left.

[dnorsen]

tight contest between lightning bolt and jon spencer blues explosion. both believe in "11"

[Hip Priest]

I've probably mentioned it before, but I saw a Brasillian samba band called Olodum once. There were about 16 people on stage, around a dozen of whom were drummers. We were right next to the speaker stack, and it was awesome.

[Glice]

I think Mogwai have the record for the loudest show ever, in New Zealand a few years ago. Funny thing, I've gone off their record (the first two notwithstanding) but they still have one of the greatest live shows around at the moment.

[sonicl]

I was kinda bored by Mogwai when I saw them recently, but that may have been down to the audience (a load of university students standing around waiting for something to happen) being crap. I also suspect that the students union where the gig was held may have put some sort of noise limit in place, although it would amaze me if Mogwai had allowed themselves to be booked into a place where that would have happened.

Oh, and I'm adding Primal Scream on the Exterminator tour to my list of loud gigs.

[Glice]

Oh, fuck yeah. I'm not a huge fan of Primal Scream, I got dragged along to one of the xtrmnator shows, I was astonished at how loud they were. Certainly a better live band than they are on record.

[Hip Priest]

Deicide were quite loud, too.

[atari 2600]

The loudest proper concert that I've been to is Dinosaur, Jr. at the 40 Watt with My Bloody Valentine opening.

It was the first show at the new Washington St. location where the club still resides after many, many moves over the span of the earlier years of its existence. I've posted accounts of this show nearly every time there has been a thread here about your favorite live shows and I've posted a friend's account also at least once too. Maybe I'll revisit the subject later on, but for now there's another show that I'd like to briefly write about, although there are definitely some other notable runners-up too.


I've written of this before as well, but I went to a Gobblehoof show in a very small below street level place called (at the time) The Downstairs on Clayton St. in Athens that was actually even louder than the Dino/MBV one.

My girlfriend at the time and I were downtown earlier in the afternoon on the day of the show and she happened to know the guitar player from high school in DeKalb County and he told us they were playing. So we go to the show, and immediately get a little starstruck because Michael Stipe and his big ol' dome is there. This is the only show at that venue I ever went to at this place that had folded chairs set up and Michael was front row center of the maybe three or four short rows of chairs.

So, the band starts playing and what is instantly apparent is that it feels like your ears are in a lot of pain. We stuffed trash from our pockets and whatever we could find in our ears and stayed through the whole show. It was definitely way too fucking loud but the band was really good and it was awkward to leave as well since my girlfriend knew the band a little. What amazed me is that Stipe remained seated for the whole set which went on for almost an hour or so I would guess.

[DemonBox]

I saw The Hub at a small venue last week, and that was really loud. But, Sereena Maneesh this summer were even louder.

[Jef Mertens]

The loudest shit I ever encountered definitely would be Phil Niblock in Brussels in 2000. During soundcheck the walls were immensely vibrating and power failed three times.

Twas quite amazing nonetheless...

[king_buzzo]

motorhead! i vas standing really close to the stage

[Everyneurotic]

black label society (believe me, that's all they had going, the loudness) and slayer at ozzfest 2004, the shocking thing is that it was deafening loud yet it was an open amphitheater they were playing. i saw dino jr last year in central park and, it being a park, the sound dispersed a lot so it wasn't as loud...still, whenever j stepped into his distortion pedal, you noticed the jump in volume.

exodus two years ago and morbid angel last year were loud as fuck.

and the award for loudest instrument i've heard live goes to flea's bass when i saw the chili peppers and, believe me, that's the only thing they had going.

i've never seen them live but people say that sunn o))) make mbv sound like dentist waiting room muzak in comparison.

[_slavo_]

My mother was pretty loud on me when I came home shitfaced for the first time as a teenager.

She was creating real good feedback and super sounding riffs and even slapped me one or two times

[king_buzzo]

Originally Posted by Everyneurotic

slayer at ozzfest 2004

that must have been really loud. i hate ozzfest though

[HaydenAsche]

I've not been to that many shows so I can't really say.

Modern Life Is War was a fantastically loud live band.