Why does rock concert sound suck?

I have to disagree with the central premise of this thread, and kindly suggest that some bands should not play some venues.  I saw My Morning Jacket this summer at a small outdoor theater in Dillon CO.  The sound was impressive beyond belief.  I do station myself as close to the mix board as possible, and in this case was directly to the right of it.  I also saw Spiritualized recently at a small indoor venue in Chicago and the sound there again was very good.  GA show, make sure you're not under any overhangs or balconies for an indoor show and you're in good shape.  

If we are talking repurposed basketball arenas with assigned seats then yeah, not going to be the best experience.  This technology though is worth keeping an eye on....I thought U2 dabbled in it prior.  

Last thing I'll add is some people want the live experience to sound exactly like the record.  F that.....to me the live experience is about how well the band adapts, evolves and presents that song in this new venue outside the studio....that's the true test.  

One big mistake at the pro level is to think that electronic manipulation of the actual room acoustical problems will somehow fix them.

Never has, never will. Mitigate to some small degree, yes. but turn it around and make for a ’higher quality in the same scenario than without electronic manipulation?’ No.

They tell you to fix the room (acoustics) first, for some very important fundamental reasons and no amount of electronic measurement and subsequent purely electronic manipulation will ever change that. Mitigate some of the greater issues, with regard to our immediate realization/sensitivity of said problems? Yes. But... fix? No, not at all.

Electronic manipulation of acoustics is an ill conceived badly applied sometimes half-trick pony, at best.

the modern version of pro sound has this electronic manipulation of concert and venue acoustics ’repair and/or mitigation’ as being quite prominent, it has ’gone mainstream’.

so now we have the combined problem of ’overpowering the room with volume/power’ which was the prior norm before the extreme levels of digitization that are currently in use (in fix attempts), combined with electronic manipulation fixes.

Just...Great. The worst of both worlds.

I guess they never got the memo on acoustics as good acoustics is more difficult to achieve. It’s probably that the money and the ease of the idea (lazy or incapable, or some combination thereof) was just too darned appealing.

"Thinking is difficult, therefore let the herd pronounce judgment!" ~Carl Jung. Or, as said in Monty Python.. "Very small rocks!"

Just go there and enjoy every moment of it.

@mtbiker29 Thanks for posting that a friend and I were just talking the other night about the Sphere Center about to open in Vegas and whether Phish would play there vs the MGM.

I can’t tell you how many terrible sounding concerts I have been to.

I stopped going to amplified concerts over twenty years ago. I had to put paper in my ears to prevent hearing damage. I still had access through conferences I attended every year… I would stuff napkins in my ear… seldom have i lasted more than one or two tunes.

I have been to the Orange County Conference center, Orlando at least a dozen times. It sounded pretty good once.

Generally too loud, difficult acoustics, electronics built more for volume versus quality, In house audio engineer… well, I don’t know what is wrong with them. I am sure one could come up with a half dozen more.

Even twenty five years ago my system sounded much better than I could hear at a concert. Also, I hate fighting to claim seats.

However, I have had season tickets to the symphony for over ten years. Reserved seats on the aisle, front and center. From my seat if a violin soloist is playing a Stradivarius it takes me a couple notes to be able to tell. The sound hole of the violin is pointed at my seat. This also helped me calibrate my hearing for choosing electronics. Has been one of the most positive influences in audio for me.