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Heaviest Band You've Seen Live

ratcheer

ratcheer

Great question. I am going to answer before I read the other responses, so I am not overly influenced by them.

Hmmm....

I am going to say, The Allman Brothers Band at The Omni in Atlanta. I can't pinpoint the year, but Duane Allman was still alive, I think.

Runners up - The Rolling Stones on the Exile on Main Street tour, 1974. Stevie Ray Vaughn about a week before his death. ZZ Top playing for free in a parking lot really kicked ***. :ohmy:

My biggest miss - I was invited to go to The Atlanta International Pop Festival in 1970. The star attraction was Jimi Hendrix. I said I didn't want to go. :confused: It turned out to have been my only chance to see him.

Tim
 
Seraphim

Seraphim

sween1911 said:
ACDC!

Don't know is it counts as "heavy" per so, but as far as loudness goes, the worst for me was ACDC at the Spectrum in Philadelphia, circa 1996. As we were walking up the steps to the doors and I could see and hear the doors vibrating in their frames while the opening band played, I knew there would be pain. Should have brought earplugs.

We get settled and the opening skit was a Beavis and Butthead cartoon on a screen. It was SO....PAINFULLY....LOUD I seriously considered clamping my hands over my ears for the entire concert. They started off with Back In Black and I just said the heck with it and unclamped. At one point during "Thunderstruck", my friend hits me (the only way we had of getting each other's attention) and holds up his ticket. The ticket was moving, flexing in the air in time to the basedrum.

The entire ride home with my friend was pretty much static with the occasional bleep and blurp heard as we tried to talk to each other. Lying in my bed that night, I could still hear the roar of the crowd. Sometime around 6pm the following day, my hearing returned. I know there was at least some permanent damage done that night!
Click to expand...


My brother in law was working a camera for VH1's Fan Club (circa 2001) when they came to Boston, he had me help him out (carry batteries and spare tapes for the camera). So, I was pretty psyched, backstage, and all that. So, we're waiting in the hall leading out to the stage to film them coming out of the dressing room and to walk on stage.....a door opens...a group of big dudes comes out..this is it,, legends of Rock! AC/DC!.......

Turns out the big guys were the body gaurds, or what have you, and they were surrounding the members of the band, all of whom were these tiny little guys, 5'6" or well under!:w00t:

I thought that was pretty funny. You see them up on stage, on MTV, wherever, and they look larger than life. In person they are these shrimpy little guys....

The show rocked though!
 
TorzJohnson

TorzJohnson

Black Flag, pre-Rollins in early '81, and again, with Rollins a year or two later.

Blue Oyster Cult in '79 was also pretty damn heavy.
 
Stubblefield

Stubblefield

Accept, opening for Ronnie James Dio, back in the day. They were Freakin' LOUD. The crowd went crazy when they performed "Balls to the Wall (man)."

Also: Neil Young and Crazy Horse.
 
NightLad

NightLad

I saw Green Day live. I didn't mosh or body surf, but several people I attended the concert with did. Too loud. Too many people. Too hot. I'll stick with the symphony. :tongue:
 
waterbear

waterbear

without a doubt it would have to be Vanilla Fudge. We were in the very front and I was mesmerized watching Tim Bogert's hand just blur on "Shotgun" and "You Keep Me Hangin' On".
[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aWFaZgwerY[/YOUTUBE]
[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10aXR8vxzHQ[/YOUTUBE]
He has to be one of the fastest bass players that ever was!
I just gave away my age.
 
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Spivey

Spivey

They aren't heavy, but I saw the Replacements in 1989 or 1990 and my ear bled. No joke. During "Bastards of Young."
 
desmoface

desmoface

I was fortunate enough to see these guys with my brother, back in '84, in the Flats in Cleveland. I took a girl I was seeing, a cheerleader from Wickliffe High School. I do believe that was our last date LOL.

[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2LupsLlx1M[/YOUTUBE]

Never saw them live, but this makes me wish I did hehe
[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4YLSSHCL8Y[/YOUTUBE]

Steve
 
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strat1117

strat1117

Deep Purple at Radio City Music Hall, 1975

I like loud. This was an order of magnitude beyond ridiculously loud. My ears are still ringing. What?
 
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ouch

ouch

Stjynnkii membörd dummpsjterd
I recall getting hit in the noggin with a bottle at a Clash riot at The Bond in the early 80's.

Loudest? Disaster Area. :001_tongu
 
bythbook

bythbook

waterbear said:
without a doubt it would have to be Vanilla Fudge. We were in the very front and I was mesmerized watching Tim Bogert's hand just blur on "Shotgun" and "You Keep Me Hangin' On".
[youtube]_aWFaZgwerY[/youtube]
[youtube]10aXR8vxzHQ[/youtube]
He has to be one of the fastest bass players that ever was!
I just gave away my age.
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oh, MAN!

that was my first real rock show... 1969, maybe... at SUNY Plattsburgh. I was a high school kid just hangin' out in the "city" - and there was a show in the college gym (too big a band for the auditorium & before there was a Field House).... And my bud & I just walked in!

What a GREAT SHOW! Thanks for that memory....

AS far as I was concerned in 1969 - as a garage band bass player - Bogert was THE MAN.
 
Mainecanefan

Mainecanefan

I have seen so many heavy shows in my life. Some faves include:

The Melvins in 1994, 2 days after Cobain ate his shotgun, at Zootz here in Portland. Just crushingly heavy. King Buzzo was pissed off that night.

Others that have floored me with their brutality live in the last couple of years-

Gojira
Behemoth
Job For a Cowboy
The Red Chord
 
Maduro

Maduro

The Dead Kennedys at the Ritz in NYC
The Cramps at Malibu and at the Peppermint Lounge
Jethro Tull at the Nassau Colliseum and MSG
 
Gogo

Gogo

The closest I came to Zeppelin was two separate Plant and Page tours. Incredible shows, but certainly couldn't have topped '69-'73.

I've seen the Allmans several times and could never pick a favorite. They were all different and awesome in their own way.

My parents took me to Michael Jackson's Bad tour when I was a kid. It completely blew my mind.

Perhaps the heaviest show I saw was Soundgarden in 1995? in D.C. The show was in Bender Arena at American University. Super loud and quaint because it was just a small gym.
 
thunderball

thunderball

As mentioned in another thread, watching Pantera and Sepultura play together just about blew my head off. Also saw Machine Head in a tiny little club in Vancouver...also incredibly 'weighty'! :biggrin:
 
waterbear

waterbear

bythbook said:
oh, MAN!

that was my first real rock show... 1969, maybe... at SUNY Plattsburgh. I was a high school kid just hangin' out in the "city" - and there was a show in the college gym (too big a band for the auditorium & before there was a Field House).... And my bud & I just walked in!

What a GREAT SHOW! Thanks for that memory....

AS far as I was concerned in 1969 - as a garage band bass player - Bogert was THE MAN.
Click to expand...

I saw them in Miami in 69 also. They played a free concert at University Of Miami on the Student Union patio. Bogert and Appice taught a summer jazz/rock workshop there the following year that the bass player in in the band I was in took and I got to meet them through her! (Yes, my bass player was a chick. It was pretty funny when she sang "The Lemon Song" but she did sound like Plant!)
 
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