LOUDEST Concert and Tinnitus

Jacksonville Coliseum 1974(?) Black Sabbath. First two songs sounded amazing then drenching sound level panicked me…..ear canals felt “slick”….stuffed napkins didn’t stop 4-5 days of ringing numbness.

Johnny Winter, smaller club New Orleans 1980; injured his fretting hand, had to play slide only….brutal volume, I left.

Funkadelic, 1970 (?), Miss State cow barn; first introduction to “wall of sound”.

Fell asleep to Yes’ Close to the Edge at home late-late a few years ago, too loud…ears ringing for a few days…never again.

Can still hear refrigerator turn on at night so all is not lost….but random mild ringing happens occasionally. Am lucky.

My loudest show as an audience member was The Ramones at The Santa Monica Civic Auditorium,  a cement bunker of a room. Second was Ray Davies Telecaster when The Kinks played The Fillmore Auditorium (or was it Winterland?) in 1971. SO piercing!

But the biggest scare I had was when I did a long audition (eight hours!) with a band that was forming that same year. I was positioned directly across the room from one of the two guitarists. His Guild Starfire was plugged into a Fender Twin Reverb amp, the latter pointed directly at me from about ten or twelve feet away. We jammed from ten at night until six the next morning, and as I packed up my drums the sound of the guys' voices were drastically muffled-sounding, like a blanket was over their heads. Scared me to death! My hearing eventually returned to normal, but I'm sure there was some permanent damage.

Ted Nugent a dozen times, stereos, Black Sabbath, BTO, years-no, decades, of engines and race tracks and dyno runs...a lifetime of poor judgment regarding my hearing. Now I have a permanent noise floor that sounds like 1000 metallic crickets. A cautionary tale for anyone not there yet. Mine didn't start until about 10 years ago, after I started taking precautions. 

The Ramones. University of Rochester (NY) campus in the early 80's. Ears rang for three days. I had tinnitus but it went away on it's own.

Hot Tuna at the Palladium in November 1977.  I can still hear that concert more than 45 years later!