O man, I am a nut on the topic of amplified sound. How I hate it! Some years ago I went to a Judy Collins concert that was so horribly loud that people were yelling at her from all over the auditorium to turn it down. It was so loud, that at times I felt a yellow-hot streak of pain that started in both ears and went straight down my body to my diaphragm. My DH asked the sound man to turn it down, but he said the volume was being controlled by a mic on stage. Later I tried standing behind a column and putting wet toilet paper in my ears, but it didn't help. Finally, we left. (I am no longer a fan.)

Out in the parking lot, it sounded like an enormous Judy Collins, one the size of the ugly Transamerica Building in San Francisco, was towering over the landscape and booming at us.

Don't any of these people have any idea what the decibel level of their sound is and should be?

At another concert, much more recent Cajun event, the sound started out so loud I went right up and asked for my money. However, something inside the hall changed all that. As soon as the music started, a little boy shotup the aisle in obvious pain and terror, his hands clamped over his ears. The musicians waved frantically for the volume to be turned down, and it was. (Imagine what it takes to drive a preschooler away from his parents into a strange dark building full of strangers.)

Once again, why doesn't anybody know what the decibel level is?

In conclusion: AARGH!