loudest band you've ever seen

Like many others my previous answer (Black Flag, Curve, and Yes) is revised to MBV. If I had to pick any one show it would be the one at the El Rey where someone had a seizure during the soundcheck.

All of which does beg the question, does the volume serve the music? I remember a My Bloody Valentine gig in Belfast round '89/90, having badgered a group a friends to accompany me making all sorts of outlandish (but justified) claims for their music. There was the mosh-pit and then a gap with most of the rest the audience cowering at the back of the hall. The gorgeous melodies under the noise got lost. There were times I barely recognised the tunes. I got some frosty looks during a post-gig party.

With other bands, like Sunn O))) the physicality of the volume made more sense somehow. Feeling it in your bones.

Black Dice at ATP

at the 2011 Animal Collective ATP? I recall feeling that the entire inside of my head felt it was going to vibrate into dust.

Motorhead at First Avenue

Or maybe that one early 00s noise band where the dudes wore Donny Darko type creepy Rabbit heads? Can't think of the name

does the volume serve the music?

there is definitely such a thing as 'too loud'. I was at a Cannibal Corpse show once where the volume was painfully loud to the point of damaging and while I had a good time, my ears paid for it (I should use earplugs).

same thing with Noisem once - they requested their volume be pumped up, and it made their music incomprehensible to the point of me not giving a shit.

mbv / boredoms were predictably loud as fuck on the occasions i've seen them live but, less predictably, prince and 3rdeyegirl were also super-loud when i saw them in glasgow last year, enough that some feebs next to us left after a few songs

Or maybe that one early 00s noise band where the dudes wore Donny Darko type creepy Rabbit heads? Can't think of the name

― Amira, Queen of Creativity (upper mississippi shakedown), Thursday, November 26, 2015 10:02 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

White Mice?