Loudest live guitar player

[watson503]

Motorhead in 1988 with Overkill and Slayer on the South Of Heaven tour (Motorhead was touring the Rock 'n' Roll album) at the old NRG nightclub off of N Shepherd in Houston. Motorhead was loud as fuck. I'd been a big fan of them since the No Remorse album came out and they left a huge impression on me seeing them live, especially opening for Slayer.

 

[headlessdeadguy]

This is going to come as a surprise but the loudest band I’ve ever seen was Blackfoot. It was around 86-87. Just too loud. I was off balance leaving the venue and I wasn’t old enough to drink. Lol

 

[Wayniac3]

Loudest individual guitarist, in a small club, was Jake E Lee on the 2nd Badlands tour.
Two full Marshall stacks, totally cranked.
LOUD AF, but totally glorious.

This!
And Malmsteen

 

[tallcoolone]

Pantera/Dimebag, and by quite a margin

 

[Jeff Hilligan]

Akira.....holy sheet

 

[Findthetone1]

Vinnie Vincent in a sub-2000 capacity venue. And the tone was so horrible, ear piercing and grating, I'm still suffering from it. And that was in 1988.

 

[IndyWS6]

I saw (post Jani) Warrant at a very small club and both guitar players had H&K Switchblade stacks. Absolutely brutal. I bought one not long after that and still have it.

 

[Chris O]

Ratt at a smaller club/bar show back around 2000-ish. Jizzy Pearl was singing and Corabi playing ryhythm guitar. I was in front of WDM - maybe 10-15 feet, my ears were about midpoint height of the stacks - he was playing 3 full stacks, and it HURT. They were also overdriving the PA, so it was that blown-out woofing resonance. It took about a week to recover from that.

 

[mentoneman]

Going on 400+ live shows,arenas,stadiums,all the big name bands, you name it,but it was at a 3k seater when I heard thee loudest guitars of all time.It was Stryper.( and I was back,rear seating.)

oh my gosh you just reminded me!
that was the first concert i saw when i moved to Fullerton in 84. it was a pretty small church in Garden Grove and from the 5th row it was so loud that i had to chew up pieces of leaflets i found in the pews in front of me to stuff in my ears!!

so my revised list is now:

1) Nugent
2) Stryper
3) Ozzy w/Jake

 

[GOHOINC]

Someone already posted but zakk wylde's black label society at Annie's, cincinnati, in 1998/99 I can't remember exactly. 2 800 half stacks center stage, 2 more stage left and that bass rig in a club the size of gas station/minimart.

 

[67mike]

I could not hear anything but ringing in my ear facing the stage for 3 days after seeing Ozzy with Jake. We were in the line of fire of his cabs and the PA.

 

[Alpha Stryke]

Angus, Lynch & EVH 1982 / thread.

 

[jabps]

So the Jake e Lee tone video and the volume of that setup got me thinking. Who is the loudest guitar player you’ve heard live compared to a) the band and b) the pa.

I was directly in front of George lynch in sturgis and one head and a matrix power amp into 2 cabs was insanely loud but at least I could still hear the pa a little and the singer. But the loudest was 2004 EVH, I was in the ring in the stage in front of his cabs. Every single one of the cabs was plugged in. His playing was not good but he was so loud you could hear nothing else. You couldn’t hear his monitor, the pa or the drums. An honorable mention goes to rick Nielsen of cheap trick also at sturgis. His side of the stage was all him and when you went back the pa was all him. You would hear the singer screech and then his amps would screech, brittle bight tone.

Speaking of Jake, loudest I ever heard was him on Badlands first tour. 1K seater club, standing right in front of him and his Marshalls, so loud I had to leave after a couple of songs and head to the back. Stupid loud really.

I mean I've heard stupid loud bands ala Kiss, Metallica where you just go why? And many a loud guitar players in my day but Jake that day was just wtf dude. Enuff Znuff opened and their mix, even right in front of Derek Frigo was perfect. Maybe that's why Jake and Eric Singer were arguing on stage that night, who knows but my loudest award goes to Jake and his backline of orange colored Marshalls.

 

[jabps]

Vinnie Vincent in a sub-2000 capacity venue. And the tone was so horrible, ear piercing and grating, I'm still suffering from it. And that was in 1988.

Dude we're all still suffering from Vinnie lol.

 

[Metalhex]

Buddy Guy back during the Hendrix Experience tour back around 2014. People were leaving during his set complaining about how loud it was.

 

[HellraiserJohnny]

View attachment 444027
i had a 103 fever.
a wall of dimed dual showman amps and his byrdland periodically screaming with feedback…
my ears rang for two days

be metal my friends.

I saw him in Philly (Vet Stadium) in the 80's with that same wall of Fenders. The show was outdoors. It was so loud the birds that flew near his side of the stage dropped like stones out of the air. I've seen to thousands of live shows since then and to this day, I've never heard anything that loud at a live show.

 

[DrewJD82]

I’ve gotten to hear the rigs of Yngwie, Vai and EJ straight from the cabs from about 10 feet away from them, I could only tolerate about 15 seconds of Yngwie, he wasn’t even coming through the PA and the soundman couldn’t get the backing tracks loud enough over the amps.

Vai was fucking stupid loud but his cabs were spread out so you didn’t get the brunt of it directly in your face, he’s also had the loudest concerts I’ve ever been to, hands down. Like 1 more dB and it’d be painful. I dunno how many metal bands I’ve seen in small and large venues, Vai at the Parker Playhouse, 3 tours in a row, were the loudest shows I’ve ever fucking heard.

EJ is pretty damn loud, especially his clean tone because the open back cabs bounce off the back of the stage and fills it up with sound, you’d get blasted by his dirty cabs but when he’d switch to the cleans the whole stage would just fill up with sound and those fuckers are dialed in BRIGHT. While both EJ and Yngwie do the dimed Marshall thing, EJ rolling off the highs takes the brunt of the load off…..Yngwie was just full on treble and Marshall snarl, that was fucking brutal.

 

[teestone]

sunn O)))

I’m pretty sure the idea is to move your internal organs with sound waves. Sonically you can feel it in your chest.

Attempting without hearing protection is eardrum suicide.

 

[DanTravis62]

Phil Campbell and Karl Logan

 

[VonBonfire]

Buddy Guy back during the Hendrix Experience tour back around 2014. People were leaving during his set complaining about how loud it was.

I blame the soundman. I was Buddy around '97 at the Bayfront blues fest and then again around 2005. The 2005 show was at the St Pete Bluesfest and all that had for P.A was a sissy flying line array vs the 5 story monster they had in Duluth. It was actually disappointing cause it was a similar sized huge field with about 1/10th the power....