Rock band made more noise than jet engine

Press, 26 July 1980, Page 1

Rock band made more noise than jet engine

Those who attended the rock music concert given by the Ramones in the Christchurch Town Hall auditorium on Thursday evening may have been fortunate that the group’s whole sound system was not used. According to the manager of the Town Hall (Mr B. P. Connell) he was told that half of the sound, system that travelled with the American punk rock band had had to be left in Wellington. As it was, most comment .after the show referred to the noise levels, which Mr .Connell said averaged- about .116 deci-, bels (dB), according to a decibel meter placed in the spotlight controller’s box, high at? the rear of the auditorium.

The peak was about 130 dB, but it was not the peaks that worried people, it was the constancy of the ■ sound, ?Mr Connell said.

“The sound would appear to be louder in front of the speakers,” he said.

The principal inspector of health in the Health Department (Mr L. V. Weldon) said that if the department was asked it would recommend that noise levels at a concert not exceed 115 dB, and that the . music be. at a level at which people could enjoy themselves.

Under the Factories Act, 1946, the Health Department did not recommend

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any worker to be subjected to noise levels above 115 dB, he said, and that workers’ who were subjected to 85dB in an eight-hour day, five-day week job had ”to be sup- ■ plied with ear protection equipment. There were no good' guidelines on noise levels for’ concerts, but those who went to concerts . went at their own risk, Mr. Weldon said. Between 120 dB and 140 dB was heading for the

threshold of pain, he said. A jet aircraft taking off 100 m away would give a reading of 125d8. Mr Connell thought that people would begin “voting with their feet” by not attending rock concerts because of the high noise levels. ■ ■

The public would gradually realise that the bombardment of sound at $lO a ticket was not worth it,

when they could buy a record and go home , and play it.at. a better level on a stereo system, he said. Mr Connell said that'although the people handling sound with the rock groups were asked about sound levels before the concerts " started, “they seemed to have spent so long ■ in front of a sound system they can’t hear you, and take no notice at all.” The problem of sound levels was virtually un-

controllable because within “half-a-second” of a rock concert starting the sound could be wound up. If the show was stopped it would cause a riot, Mr Connell said. He said the Ramones concert was not as bad as that of the English teenybopper rock music group, The Sweet, in 1975, when girls were leaving the show with their ears bleeding. That show averaged 120 dB. One. person at the Ramones’ concert was unable to hear properly yesterday afternoon, more than 12 hours after . the concert,, and another said that he had found the Ramones’ show loud and long, yet the band was on stage only about 75 minutes. Recent rock concerts in the Town Hall have been quite loud, including the one given by the New Zealand band, Mi-Sex. The Prime Minister (Mr Muldoon) carried ear plugs when he attended Mi-Sex’s Wellington show, but did not use them.