Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Elvis Costello = Worst Sound EVER

I saw Elvis Costello tonight at the Palace Theater in Louisville and it was without a doubt the shittiest sound EVER. For the first few songs the volume level was horrendous and the quality of the sound was very harsh. The keyboards were as loud as the vocals which were distorted, the guitar sounded like shit, the drums sounded like they were in the back of a cave... only the bass guitar sounded relatively OK though even it was indistinct. After a few songs they backed off on the mains but from that point on Elvis's vocals were lower than the bass player's backing vocals and his guitar was almost absent from the mix. The keyboards were too loud throughout. At more than $60 a ticket I at least expect decent sound from a concert. The worst thing about it is he played a great set that went on for over 2 1/2 hours with three encores but there were times when you couldn't even tell what song he was doing. The sound was that bad. I'm trying to find out who was doing sound now so I can make sure they're on every black list I can get them added to.

1 comments:

John M. said...

I'd wager the sound was local. At the State Palace in N.O. the sound was consistently shitty. I started to notice that it was the same system and the same bozos running it.

Sometimes, it seems like local sound guys do sound checks and then never adjust when a few thousand sacks of water move into the space.