http://www.audiotechnology.com.au/wp/index.php/time-to-shelve-the-low-end/
 
I almost dread going to live concerts anymore. No matter how great the band, there's a 90% chance the FOH guys are going to ruin it. I'll hear horrid things coming out of the PA, look over at the mixer and he's chatting with a groupie and looking cool and oblivious to the sonic mayhem he's causing. Sure, a lot of it is bad rooms and outdoor venues that the crew can't control, but often they don't appear to even be making an effort.
 
The main stage at NAMM this year was a refreshing exception. In past years, sound there had been dreadful, but they've moved the main stage out of the convention center lobby and into the street outside. The stage sits between two large hotels, which you'd expect to cause problems, but fires down a block-long street. Whoever they put in charge of the PA clearly knew what they were doing, because the sound quality was surprisingly good for an outdoor venue. One thing noticeably absent: the usual stacks of multiple subs.

bitflipper
I almost dread going to live concerts anymore. No matter how great the band, there's a 90% chance the FOH guys are going to ruin it.

I've attributed this to them being deaf, which also explains why the sound is always WAY too loud.  I've stopped going to live shows and, if I absolutely have to, I bring earplugs.  Unfortunately earplugs do nothing against panic attack inducing extreme bass levels, where your heart has no choice but to beat in sync with the music.

One of the last live shows I attended was a country concert with Kenny Chesney as the headliner.

It's fairly normal for the headliner to have the PA throttled back with respect to the low end for the opening and subsequent acts so that when the HL comes out, the PA is kicking it top to bottom and the HL sounds so much better.  

Or so I thought.....  of course the lows were lacking for the first 2 bands.... and they were at a reasonable volume....
 
When KC took the stage, the sound level was deafening. And being in the lawn seats, I had to watch the huge monitors to see what was going on with the band. I could not hear any bass..... none.... OK... so for a few seconds I thought the bass was out but it's gonna come in at the chorus..... there went the chorus and the music is still lacking bass. 
 
So I guess, someone forgot to turn the sub amps on, or they were dead. The entire concert went that same way.... no bottom in the sound but the volume never backed off a bit..... I sat down and pretty much stayed there for the rest of the show. Since everyone else around me was standing, I was out of the jet wash of the main PA's blast zone and the music was almost tolerable from that vantage point. I was never so glad to see a concert end as I was with that one.  
 
I guess the FOH guy was either deaf, drunk or otherwise engaged and too busy to bother to try to get the mix sounding good. It was by far the worst show I ever had the displeasure of wasting my money on. 

There ought to be a special circle of hell reserved for incompetent live sound engineers, especially when they wreck the sound in the venue where they normally work.

Worst I can remember over the last few years is a gig in a localish theatre. Three piece headlining band, bass, drums, guitar/vocals. It took the venue's sound "engineer" half their set to spot he hadn't turned the SM57 on the guitar amp on. He only spotted it then because the band and audience alike were complaining they couldn't hear much guitar.

Rubbish sound and no view or atmosphere is why I tend to avoid big outdoor festivals most of the time unless there's someone I really want to see on. That and the ever wonderful English weather. And if I have to watch the gig on a screen anyway because the performers are ant-sized specks in the distance I'll watch them on TV thanks. That way I can drink what I want, eat what I want, wear what I want, smoke what I want, set the volume how I want it and usually get a better sound quality as well as view.

Unfortunately the "loud is better" crowd has made themselves so deaf they have become the "if it is not loud, I hear nothing" crowd. Self-fulfilling prophecy but incredibly sad since most industries enforce hearing protection except for the one that should the most (you can be deaf as a post and still drive a jackhammer).

I attended a concert last night that was ruined by bad sound.
 
The act was a Beatles tribute band that have been doing the same shtick for 32 years, so the performance was tight and polished. It was a full house, so they enjoyed the benefit of acoustically-absorbent human bodies.
 
It was a 1920's-era high-ceiling 300-seat theater. There were no subs employed, and volume was reasonable for the space. So there were a lot of factors they got right.
 
But there was a huge midrange peak about 1.2KHz that ruined everything. The acoustic guitar in particular sounded just awful, like a ten-dollar instrument recorded with a 1970's-era cassette recorder. This made vocal harmonies consistently unbalanced, and any screamed vocals (common in early Beatles material) felt like ice picks to the ear. I was wearing a stocking cap, so I pulled it down over my ears, which reduced the pain a little.
 
I examined the PA and the board, wondering if perhaps they'd been forced to use a poorly-installed house system with the faders taped down. That was not the case. It was a flown array, but it was the band's own gear and their own FOH guy. And he was an old guy! Old as me. Old enough you'd assume he had a lot of experience.
 
Or perhaps old enough that he just didn't give a sh*t anymore.

I like live music. I agree that I would often twiddle nobs if invited to.

That said, I'm not convinced I always make it sound better, even at home in a post show mix.

Live mixing is an industry that seems to have attracted many people who are just plain useless and have no ears at all.  There does not seem to be any consistency or regulation in it for some reason.
 
Dave I tune the PA to the room and I do it with Steely Dan's 'Everything Must Go' CD.  I would have heard the mid range out of balance sound in seconds and corrected it.  Also when I mix in live venues where the subs are simply out of control that excessive low end is just so obvious.  Once I put the bottom end totally back into shape as per how the CD is supposed to sound the PA is usually perfect from that point on.
 
Often I go into a venue and the FOH EQ is all over the place from the night before and looks like a dog’s hind leg.  Some idiot has set it up to what they think is good.  Interesting in 99% of cases when I flatten out the FOH completely and listen to Steely Dan it most often sounds perfect!  (meaning PA was installed very nicely often and well setup)
 
The other problem is most live mixers have no musical knowledge either.  In one of these posts it was mentioned no guitar was present out front.  I would heard that in a microsecond and gone looking for the problem.  Because one should look up see what is supposed to be there but some live guys just cannot do that for some reason.
 
Another problem too is when someone takes a solo most live mixers cannot hear that and they end up just at the same too low volume.  I move that person to the centre and turn them up to bring out the solo and then when finished moved them back and turn them down a little.  That is something from my Jazz days I suppose.
 
They are the most useless and horrible sound people in the business and 99% of them should be nowhere near a decent PA.  It is most often not the PA or the room that is the issue but the idiot behind the desk.
 
Hey when Return to Forever came out to Australia Chick Corea brought out Bernie Kirsh to do the live mix. Now that was a sound folks!  Perfect in every sense of the word.  I am not saying all studio mixers make perfect live mixers but they are a hell of a lot better though.  Most live PA guys would not be able to mix a studio track to save themselves.  That is part of the problem.
 
When the band is great the live mix is ten times easier but many still get it wrong.  The problem is everywhere you go as well.
 

A couple of years ago my daughter sang a song (with backup band) for the local community music school.  The concert was in a brand new 1000 seat concert hall.  The sound guys were the hall's regulars, hired for the evening.  [I set aside the fact that the whole concert was much too loud, especially with children and grandparents in the audience].  The girl before my daughter's mic was dead, which I learned after was because she'd been given the 'wrong' one by one of the teachers (it had no switch).  So she sang her entire song with no one able to hear her.  At that point I was really anxious for my daughter and would probably have caused a very uncomfortable scene had her mic been dead as well.  Luckily it worked and her song went very well.
 
Talking to one of the teachers later, I expressed annoyance that the sound guys had made no attempt to fix the problem (I sat right beside the desk and they didn't even flinch), like maybe try each mic until the good one was determined.  Maybe lose the intro of the song but good for the rest.  The answer was that the console was digital and programmed and it wasn't a simple matter to make an on-the-fly change to the setup.  I know nothing of current digital desks, but I didn't buy it.  I would have at least have made the attempt to try each mic until I'd found the right one.

Jeff Evans
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Hey when Return to Forever came out to Australia Chick Corea brought out Bernie Kirsh to do the live mix. Now that was a sound folks!  Perfect in every sense of the word.  I am not saying all studio mixers make perfect live mixers but they are a hell of a lot better though.  Most live PA guys would not be able to mix a studio track to save themselves.  That is part of the problem.
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The Return To Forever reunion tour a few years ago was the last live concert I attended (at the Dodge Theater in Phoenix). The sound was simply outstanding. I was really happy that they recorded that tour (Live at Montreux 2008 on Blu-ray).
 
I've also attended several "wall of mud" shows.
 
S&M
 
The pleasure of anticipation.
The pain of reality.