Why does rock concert sound suck?

I can accept people commenting on bad sound as hey, people pay for a good experience and they should have one whether it’s an audience that behaves themselves (note that classical concert attendees are very touchy about audience jerkwads, although jerkwads still show up), or clean sound. The goal for mixing should be to have an audience not notice it. I can’t accept pseudo expertise in a field I know something about so I will feel free to share my knowledge because after all...I’m a giver. Feel better teo? Good...I knew you would. Note that sound mixers don’t start with the drums and bass...in large venue mixing you simply get a signal from all the mics or direct line feeds in their respective channels and mix ’em. I mention "large venue" because in smaller shows (under 500) it’s not uncommon for musicians to crank an amp up too much and ruin the mix...about which there’s nothing the sound mixer can do other than anger a musician, and you don’t want to do that.

I have to agree with many posters here that the Grateful Dead sound very good live. U2 sounds like their recorded music are they compressing their sound on purpose? I have been very fortunate to see allot of live music, for me it is usually the treble shelving that is most annoying.  Deep Purple was another great sounding show come to think about it but Alice Cooper's show was just plain weird...

I friend of mine (who also helped me set up my home system) set up the sound system for Hamilton - both for the touring shows and for Broadway.

He explained some of the incredible lengths they went to  make the amplified sound as realistic as possible .

These included adding a small delay to the feed from singers at the back of the stage, so the listeners would perceive a more natural sense of depth.

Big concert venues are fundamentally lousy for most contemporary music - the echos and delay just smear all the sound. Perhaps the excess volume is to try and drown out that problem?  

Small clubs much easier because the audience itself deadens the room & makes sound much clearer - but volume remains a choice & sometimes bands & mixers make bad choices even in venues suited for the music 

Before amplification, music was composed in harmony with its venue (think chamber music vs. organ, or choral)…it seems hard to overcome those fundamentals - so, see the music one loves and try not to worry too much about the inevitable issues (earplugs really help at rock concerts, btw - brings down the volume & makes music much clearer)

I think MSG sound not bad (relatively) because it’s actually pretty small (so audience has proportionately more sound absorption) and has a lot of tiers - deader space than many large venues

I saw the fantastic Hamilton show at the beautiful Providence Performing Arts Center. Great show , great venue ( completely re-done to bring back its majesty) & I was about 20 rows back in the center of the Orchestra. Sound was fair at best, very hard & edgy  & quite annoying at times. Big speaker arrays, class D amps & plenty of DSP. I’m not at all a fan of this now typical set up & have not experienced it once where it sounded really good.