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LOUSY SOUND AT LIVE CONCERTS

I went to a concert at Bank America Pavillion in Boston last night. I saw Tedeschi and Trucks, and The Black Crows. A terrific concert; The Tedeschi and Trucks Band was especially terrific.

Unfortunately, these bands sound better in my living room than at this beautiful, outdoor venue.

Many venues have extremely poor acoustics and/or poor sound systems. The music is often terribly distorted, details and nuances of the instrumentals and voices are lost. The sound presents as a congealed distorted mess. The art of these incredibly talented musicians cannot be fully appreciated without clear sound. Listening to music in these crappy venues is like looking at masterpiece paintings in dimly lit museums with dirty glasses. The colors, details and brush strokes are indistinct. The artistic genius cannot be fully appreciated. The Comcast Center in Mansfield, MA., Fenway Park and The Boston Garden are just as bad as The Bank Of America Pavillion, if not worse.

I am frustrated with these venues that cannot provide great sound to accompany the great music. What is the sense of attending live concerts if the sound quality sucks. Does anyone else share my frustration?
matjet
pdspecl
254 posts
 
I've probably been to about 30 > 40 concerts in my life. Some shows were a complete disappointment sound quality wise, others were pretty good given it was a large venue with lots of people.

I saw Robert Cray in a small venue in CT about 3 years ago. The venue held about 500 people. He was incredible. The sound quality was good but it was insanely loud. I use musician ear plugs to reduce loudness but get most of the music quality. Even with the ear plugs it was way too loud.
I emailed the venue manager to offer this concern.

As I get older I want preserve what hearing I have left.
I do not appreciate when it's insanely loud. How can you enjoy music when your ears are ringing and overloaded.

I have found that sitting further back (lawn seats) at out door venues typically is not as loud. So, I look for these shows
lowrider57's avatar
lowrider57
5,417 posts
 
Foster_9...I was going to mention Pink Floyd Concerts. They have excellent sound in large arenas. Plus they position speakers around the arena for surround sound.

As far as other bands' sound, I agree with the rest of you and I'll only go to a small theater for a concert.
notec
407 posts
 
You've obviously never been to Pickathon
tubegroover
2,320 posts
 
This topic has been covered before. All I can say from my experiences and perspective, attended hundreds of concerts over the years is that lousy sound appreciably diminishes the enjoyment of the music and most importantly, connection to the performance. Some of the most anticipated concerts I have attended were very disappointing because of lousy sound more notably rock concerts, much less so symphonic and jazz venues. It's really about sound guys that don't have a clue or care in getting the sound right so that the audience can both hear and enjoy the performance. The bands are at fault as well. It is an unforgivable sin of commission to me, spending hard earned money to be so disappointed.
donjr
1,335 posts
 
I saw Momentary Lapse of Reason tour in '88. That sounded good because of what Pink Floyd deemed as 'quadraphonics'. It works well for them, especially the tunes with helicopters flying in from behind you.
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