In defence of gigs without ear defenders

Are gigs too loud? Too … amplified? Ridiculous question, maybe. Who goes to a gig - anything vaguely rock-ish - expecting a subdued "room temperature" sound? It's going to be a firestorm of noise, right? This is the norm, isn't it? At the same time, it appears that almost everyone in gig audiences these days is wearing ear defenders. Pointy little yellow things poking out of their horrible, misshapen ears. Band members, sound engineers, bar staff, the audience - they've all got them. They're insulated for sound. The last gig I went to had a large box of ear defenders on the bar, free to punters. Help yourself. (Help yourself). Protect your hearing. Which is all very well - no-one wants to lose their hearing through love of rock and roll (do they?). But wouldn't it make more sense to reduce the volume going through the PA in the first place? In tech-speak, it's just a question of the sound person bringing the "gain" down a few notches. Reduced gain, everyone benefits. Or is this naive and/or just plain wrong? People go to gigs to get all shook up. Blasted and turned inside out by immense walls of sound smashing into them.I recognise this desire for the aural experience. Ringing ears at the end of the night is all part of the ritual of the "great gig", the physical token of the memorable night out. For some people this includes being sweaty from the moshpit, maybe even a bit bashed up from all that jumping about with your overexcited mates. But, this ear defenders stuff - I'm … dubious. Can't they just reduce the volume so that the loudness and physicality remain but not at the level which endangers hearing? Is this asking too much?

               

One of Peter Saville's designs for the (not-excessivley-loud) Hacienda

As I've mentioned before, there's already a fairly common tendency in some (macho?) circles to celebrate loudness for loudness' sake, a dunderheaded attitude that completely ignores how some of the best gigs are hushed affairs, where the spooked-out quietness is an incredibly powerful aid to the music. Anyway, clean your ears out because here's my revelation - I've never worn these little yellow buds of aural doom and I don't think I'm ever going to. It seems faintly ridiculous to reduce what you can hear when you've gone along to er, hear some music. But maybe I'm losing the battle (as well as my hearing). As the gigs get louder I'll be forced to reconsider. I might have to go with own personalised ear defenders. They'll be of the big "cans" headphones type. And on their outsides they'll say "Turn it down, I can't hear a thing".