LOUDEST Concert and Tinnitus


This is a two part question.

1. What is the loudest concert (or event) that you have attended?

2. How long have you had tinnitus, is it getting better or worse and how are you dealing with it?

Personally, the loudest concert was UB40 at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre in Vancouver. Loudest event was drag racing at SIR (Seattle International Raceway) which was like sticking your head in a jet engine.

Regarding tinnitus. Over the past year or so I have noticed a constant high pitched "sound" in my ears. Mostly the left ear. At this point I don't actually know if it is constant or whether I just forget about it sometimes. I know use a white noise box when I go to sleep. Otherwise I tend to fixate on the ringing.

128x128tony1954

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!

@macg19 

I had the pleasure of meeting Douglas Adams - related to an immersive “game” called Starship Titanic about 2 parallel universes on board a ship

We provided authoring software

he died too early

 

Yes, his death at only 49 back in 2001 was a great loss in so many ways.

Amongst other things Douglas may well also have been the greatest writer of these past 75 years.

 

Reading some of these accounts here of people losing their hearing for a few hours (or even days in some cases) is slightly concerning, particularly on an audio forum.

The loss of certain frequencies will no doubt have an effect upon the enjoyment of a Hi-Fi system.

In rare cases, the effect could be a good one according to maverick ENT doctor, Alfred A Tomatis who believed that hearing damage in his right ear helped Caruso achieve his greatness.

 

 

 

Third vote for AC/DC - saw them late seventies in a small venue in Dublin - few hundred capacity. At the back of the hall the bass drum was like being hammered in the chest like punch bag. A week of threshold shift followed - not ringing but the loss of probably 15k hz of bandwidth. But it taught me a lesson about hearing protection.

Rory Gallagher in '78.  My hearing was crap for a week.  I worked in the music distribution business and would get comped show tickets all the time.  But I learned early on right after Rory to just stuff some tissue in my ears.  I ended up with a mild case of tinnitus after standing and watching a pile driving machine pound in a huge support.  I was about 50 feet away.  Stood there 10 minutes.  It comes and goes but the day after, I thought something was way wrong.  It's barely even noticeable most days.