Curious... since we were talking about BAD SOUND...

[Ryan.]

Can you guys recall the best sound you ever heard live?

 

Was it the Sydney Opera House... or the local dive bar?

 

What do you think contributed to the excellence?

[Rezrover]

I was taking a hearing test...

[Axisplayer]

Can you guys recall the best sound you ever heard live?

 

Top coming off a Heineken.

 

Was it the Sydney Opera House... or the local dive bar?

 

Dive bar

 

What do you think contributed to the excellence?

 

Heat.

[Ryan.]

Hahaha. Sarcasm is always on tap here at HC.

 

I'm being for reaaaals!

[The Chinese]

Best sound I heard live was My Mix at the Burning Man decompression last year...

 

Worst sound I ever heard was My Mix at the BUrning Man Decompression lastyear

 

hehehehe

 

T

[ey86798]

Jethro Tull, two years running at Newcastle City Hall. This year it was a Turbosound rig, last year D&B Q-series. Loud, clear and balanced, and mercifully lacking in sub-abuse

[lsits]

Let's see:

 

Queen - Sheer Heart Attack tour - 1974 or 1975 at the Fore Wayne Vet's Memorial

Jethro Tull - Songs From The Wood tour - 1977 at the Mid-South Coliseum in Memphis

Asleep At The Wheel - 2008 at the San Manuel Indian Reservation

Peter Frampton - Frampton Comes Alive tour at the Mid-South Coliseum in Memphis

Eric Clapton - 1986 at the Oakland Coliseum (indoors)

[philw44]

Heat.

 

I do like the effect a boiling hot room has on sound

[IsildursBane]

Heaven & Hell - 2007, Great Woods/Tweeter/Comcast Center; Mansfield, MA

 

Milo's over stacked 700HP's. I don't remember how many boxes there were, but the hang on each side reached almost to the stage deck.

 

U2 on their last giant-robot-spider-spaceship tour sounded good, but they were kind of lifeless and pushed the system into distortion at times.

 

The Sonny Landreth show I mentioned in the "bad mix/too loud" thread actually sounded really good for the first set (though, like I said, kinda bright).

 

But really. No other show has come remotely close to sounding as good as Heaven & Hell. It was like listening to a cd.

 

The Boston Pops sound great live, but that ain't the PA. :-b

 

-Dan.

[kmart]

BEST

Rollins Band - Weight tour ~1995

Aragon Ballroom, Chicago, IL

 

If you know Chicago venues, you know the Aragon is universally slagged for being an absolutely horrible sounding room.

 

Honestly, I call bull{censored} on that; the main reason the Aragon gets so much {censored} is because of the notoriously terrible sounding Nirvana shows from 1993, which are widely regarded as some of the worst sounding shows of all time...urban myth makes the room the scapegoat, but I'd guess it was the live engineers and performers that were behind it.

 

The Rollins gig sounded CD quality clean and full. Amazingly powerful without being overkill.

 

100% because of the man in the booth, credited as a member of the band:

 

Theo van Rock

[Scodiddly]

I like 100% acoustic classical shows - those are generally the best sound I've heard.

 

Beyond that, hard to say. I don't go to many shows I don't mix myself. I do recall going to help tear down a TV show concert for the band The Fray, and when I walked in for the last couple of songs I thought it sounded great. Even though I didn't really know any of their music, I could hear everything. Not a huge place and with a Meyer rig.

[Shaster]

Tower of Power at the Q.E. Theatre, Tower of Power at Oil Can Harry's - both in Vancouver BC.

 

Skywalk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPmMj-8k49g at the Landmark Jazz Bar Vancouver circa 1984.

 

As a nod to Todd.... best mix I ever had - Junior Walker at The Ankor (sic) 1984 Vancouver - the sound just fell into place, I guess you get lucky sometimes.

[WynnD]

When ever Chupacabra played. (From Boulder Co.) They had live mics over a vibraphone. I suspect that controlled the overall volume level. Maybe they were just rational about sound. It was also very fresh and different.

[lifeloverwg]

Jethro Tull Thick as a Brick tour 1975ish? Might have been the herbs......

 

Grateful Dead some Reno casino in like 1980 sound was fantastic even before the enhancements kicked in.

 

Richard Thompson every time I've seen him.

 

Los Lobos about 1995ish in a smaller outdoor (3000 peeps) venue with the best really loud mix I've ever heard. Had to be 110+dB average 80-100' back with peaks well above that, but it wasn't harsh and grating.

 

Mark Knophler in our Symphony Hall late 90's. Every other rock show that I've seen there they didn't compensate for the fact that it's an acoustic hall and over powered the room.

 

Every Lyle Lovett show.

 

The best ever was Casey Chambers at the same venue as Los Lobos. She had an appreciative crowd on a tour where that hadn't been the case, with her dad on lead guitar and her brother who produced her CD's on the board. Sounded better than a CD.

 

Most Bluegrass and singer songwriter shows.

 

I could go on, Winston.

[Redbassman86]

Dougie Maclean @ The Blackstone River Theatre. Jaw dropping.

[dedmeet]

Hmm, my faves:

 

Yanni in Gainesville, Florida's acoustically infamous O'Connell Center. Decay times for reverberations in that building range on the order of 6-7 minutes, typically. The rig was a vDosc with ARCs as downfills up front. Everyone was on IEMs. Sound was tight, clean, and controlled. Drums were tight without the kick drum ripping your head off. System was set up perfectly for the venue and sounded like a good clean hi-fi, not an over-amped live show.

 

The only other rigs that even sounded close to that were a Sting show and one Brad Paisley show I caught in the same venue. Both used Vertec rigs. Paisley's folks were over-subbed, though, and the bass stacked up during some songs.

 

Tori Amos in 2006 in the Ruth Eckerd Hall sounded amazing, although their techs used the longest line array hang I have ever seen. Sorry, could not tell what boxes they were.

 

LiveStock 2006, Rob Zombie sounded amazing through a gigantic VERTEC rig outside. Sound was painful 100 yards back. Mudvayne, the next act, through the same system, sounded like poop.

[Mogwix]

Rage against the machine, through Dave Rat's dual-hung V-DOSC rig at Coachella 2007. It was more or less the rush of seeing my favourite band reunited. I don't really recall what it sounded like, that was the first time in a long time where I was 100% music, and not thinking about the sound system.

[Ryan.]

I saw the last show Rage ever played in Sacramento. It was in Arco Arena (notorious for awful sound). I was young and wasn't into sound yet, so I was stoked to be there and didn't even think about how it was hitting my ears. They put on a helluva show.

[roffy]

 

BEST Rollins Band - Weight tour ~1995 Aragon Ballroom, Chicago, IL If you know Chicago venues, you know the Aragon is universally slagged for being an absolutely horrible sounding room. Honestly, I call bull{censored} on that; the main reason the Aragon gets so much {censored} is because of the notoriously terrible sounding Nirvana shows from 1993 , which are widely regarded as some of the worst sounding shows of all time...urban myth makes the room the scapegoat, but I'd guess it was the live engineers and performers that were behind it. The Rollins gig sounded CD quality clean and full. Amazingly powerful without being overkill. 100% because of the man in the booth, credited as a member of the band: Theo van Rock

 

 

No, my ears have told me the Aragon has horrible sound. In fact, I didn't even know that the Aragon was known for poor sound, nor did my friends from Iowa (who know nothing of any Chicago venue). When I hear that one of my favorite bands is playing at the Aragon I get upset because I will never pay to hear a band there again.

 

That being said, it's a beautiful venue, and it's upsetting that the sound is so horrible there because I truly appreciate how interesting it is.