Ayone know the wattage used at a Rock concert?

Can't answer your question directly, but i remember reading somewhere that all the speakers used to broadcast the Molson Indy in Toronto a couple years ago were all run off a single crown amp...800watts i think, with a huge damping factor...
also the highest concert level ever recorded was at a Who concert, the speakers were run off a numer of Phase Linear amps.

I just happen to have an old issue of Pro Sound News at work and one of the monthly contents for sound reinforcement is Live Sound Showcase and Top 10 Tours Of The Month which gives you the Act/Sound Co.,venue, crew, and equipment (not quantity).

For The Dave Matthews Band
Ultra Sound/Pro Media
Saratoga Performing Arts Center, Saratoga,NY
house amp: Crest 8001, 7001, 6001
monitor amp: Crest 7001
house speakers: Meyer MSL-10, 650-R2, MSL-3, MSL-4, UM-1 front fills
monitor speakers: Meyer USM-1
personel monitor system: Shure PSM600 with Sensaphonics 2X buds.

other breakdown of equipment used from FOH & Monitor Consoles, Hardwire Mics, to rack equipment

FYI:

Wattage is a strange thing.

I just got back from seeing Harry Potter at the IMAX. They boast of having 12,000 watts and 6 channels.

My two channel 4 ohm speaker set-up has 2400 watts.

A pair of Cello Strad. Grand Masters driven by bridged Performance amps has 12,000 watts.

A pair of Klipshorns can be driven to deafening levels with five watts.

Swampwalker...so true...they always seemed to have their sound dialed in perfectly...and I didn't get to see them until 1987 for my first time...I can only imagine what they were running then as the wall of sound was from the early 70's.

I remember doing shows with as little as 1000 watts, and that's including the monitors !!! Most "good sized" venues will be running somewhere between 2500 - 6000 watts rms of amplification. On a big tour of big halls, 10K is nothing at all. Most all of it sounds like crap though because the guys working the boards are clueless and so are the guys designing the PA cabinets. When you start playing outdoors and want to generate "thunder" you've got to have REALLY big power.

As far as the Grateful Dead sound system being discussed here, John Curl designed much of that. They used Macintosh amps the system was too costly to transport due to size and weight, so it didn't last as long as most of the fans would have wanted it to.

Part of the reason why this sounded as good as it did was that they actually used midrange drivers. Most PA systems are built around large woofers crossing over to horns. Trying to get natural sounding mids / upper mids out of a large woofer is ridiculous to say the least. Cone break up and dispersion are facts of life that we have to deal with, yet most PA designers / operators aren't aware of the laws of physics or that things could sound a WHOLE lot better. Sean
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