LOUDEST Concert and Tinnitus

Loudest concert I've been to that made my ears ring for days was Black Rebel Motorcycle Club at the Civic theater. It was a combination of loudness and a poor sound engineer that made it hard to enjoy. Ears rang for a few days after. 

Worst loudest concert was the Go! Team at the Black Cat in DC where distortion, loud volume, and a terribly designed acoustical space combined to make it painful to listen to. I had to resort to tearing off pieces of cocktail napkin and making impromptu ear plugs. It helped but only modestly. 

Best loudest concert was Front 242 at the Mammoth. I had ear plugs for that but they just didn't matter. Bass you could feel deep inside your guts. Chest getting hit w/ soundwaves and I was mid-crowd. 

I have tinnitus in my left ear and it's a constant high pitch frequency. Sometimes it bothers me sometimes not. I have to have absolute silence when I sleep because even white noise machines bother me.  

@bipod72

Bass you could feel deep inside your guts.

Yes, it’s quite shocking when you first experience it.

I’m too much of a coward to enjoy it, I couldn’t bear to damage my hearing. Music matters far too much to me.

The only times I have enjoyed being bathed in pulverising sound were those times when I was drunk. Unfortunately I’m not very good with drink, I have trouble knowing when to stop.

There’s been a few occasions where I let it get the better of me and then spent the next few days paying the price.

The last occasion, some 20 years ago, was so bad that I’ve never got blind drunk since.

There were a couple of mentions of Electric Hot Tuna and I would agree. I went to a Hot Tuna concert at Plattsburg State College in NY back in 1972 and it was deafening and painful. If I remember correctly, it was held in the gym so the acoustics were terrible. It was just LOUD. After a while it was like getting an earful of pain. I walked out after 3/4 of the concert was over and was half expecting to see many people in the lobby trying to escape the painful experience, but surprise, I was the only person in the lobby! In the car driving back from the concert with my friend Dennis, we were almost screaming at each other and we still couldn’t hear or understand each other. I couldn’t hear a thing for 10 days and looking back I’m surprised that I didn’t suffer long term hearing damage. I’m 70 years old, do not have tinnitus, and can still hear up to 16kHz. Lucky me.

Top three:

1. The Who 

2. ELP

3. KISS

The Who and Kiss were so loud and distorted it was hard to know what they were playing  ELP was amazingly loud and relatively clean sounding. 

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

The loudest was Rush on the "Hold Your Fire" tour on 2/22/1988. House lights go out, the three stooges theme played and then the downbeat to "The Big Money". The pressure wave off the speaker array was so loud you could feel your clothing move and you were pushed back a bit. A good friend complained about ringing in his ears for days after. I did not have this happen just yet.

Fast forward 7/22/2011 and U2 @ Vanderbilt stadiumn. This one did me in. I was right by the stage and while I did not notice it at the time, after the show the ringing as there and stay with me for years. I thought it would never go away

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

After the U2 show I avoided all live events and even movie theaters for years. I used white noise therapy extensively, especially while going to bed at night and made adjustments in diet to reduce salt intake and other activities that could make it worse.

Eventually you start to map around it and do not hear it as much but it can take years to get to a point your do not notice it.. Note, it never truly goes away. The ringing corresponds to the frequencies you can no longer hear. What happens is the cilia in your ear is damaged and just continues to vibrate at all times. This is what produces the ringing.

Reduction in stress is very important as well.

I have only recently started going to shows again, but my audiology clinic make me custom ear molds for earring protection. They have custom inserts for various levels of reduction but typically I keep the -20dB insert in them. These work well and I do not experience any ringing after shows anymore.