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Why does rock concert sound suck?

I have been to two rock concert in the past year : Brit Floyd in Bridgeport CT and Eric Clapton at Madison Square Garden, NYC (last Monday)

For Brit Floyd I was about 40 feet form the stage and treble end was an ear-splitting distorted sound - the soprano solo on Dark Side of the Moon sounded like a chain saw running at 5x speed.

For Eric Clapton I was sitting at floor level about 20 rows behind the mixing desk - i.e., the opposite end from the stage. In this case the high top end was not so distorted, but the voices were still very harsh - seemingly a massive response peak at ~1500hz. Imagine AM radio with the treble turned up 20db.

I knew a lot of the words form the songs ahead of time of course, and just about recognized them, but otherwise the lyrics were unintelligible. The only exceptions were when he sang a quieter song - e.g., “Tears in Heaven” . Clapton moved back from the mic rather than place his mouth right next to it. Then the sound was quite listenable .

Of course managing the acoustics in such a big venue is no doubt a challenge — but does it have to be this bad?

oliver_reid
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jji666
538 posts
 

@larsman - this was the Cabaret Metro in Chicago. There are many venues in Chicago that will go late. Or well at least they used to when I was a regular at shows.  I did get to see Killing Joke in 1989 and so I'm not upset I missed them, but man, I'd go see many concerts if they were over by 8:00.

I saw U2 at the Aragon in 1984.  The Aragon isn't a small club, but nowhere near an arena or stadium either.  They were spectacular and the sound was really good. Seriously tight band.  Then saw them at Soldier Field.  More like holding up a postcard of the band while listening to a CD.  

booman
2 posts
 

Porcupine Tree touring now!  Superb sound.  Fantastic musicians.  A rock concert not to miss.  Roger Waters! Great muscians with Roger.  Top notch sound.  Go see the best and you won't be disappointed.

petg60
1,486 posts
 

+1 Porcupine Tree

hartf36's avatar
hartf36
207 posts
 

1981, Pontiac Silverdome (with it’s giant balloon of a roof).

Iggy Pop / Santana / Rolling Stones

Santana blew the roof off the place and actually managed to sound good, in that stadium. I’ve seen Santana literally dozens of times since about 1980 and he has always had some of the best live sound of any "rock" show I’ve seen. But managing to pull it off in the notoriously awful-sounding Silverdome (saw the Who there about a year prior, and the lyrics were absolutely unintelligible from start to finish) was a live sound engineering marvel, IMO.

Not only that, but he really blew the Stones off the stage as well. Their performance was moderately average to mediocre in both sound and execution. Word was that they almost had to pull Santana off the stage after their 90-minute set, they were so smoking. Probably the best Santana show I’ve ever seen (next to the one I took my then 3-year old daughter to, which amazingly enough, turned HER into a lifelong Santana fan, even to this day; she was at the recent show at Pine Knob when he collapsed onstage from heat exhaustion).

epz
33 posts
 

As have been said, small venues with more acoustical music works best. Tracy Chapman, James Taylor, Natalie Merchant all sounded blissful, clean and smooth at the Beacon Theater in NYC or Jones Beach. They both hold maybe a few thousand seats.

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