RE: bands that make your ears bleed. There is a fabulous venue in Brussels that often catches bands touring europe between their paris and amsterdam appointments its a converted botanical gardens with two halls, a rotund and the orangerie. One balmy summer night a handful of years ago The Charlatans came through to meet a hugely excited sold out crowd of expats and locals. Seeing someone like the charlies in a 600 capacity venue is one of the many perks of living in belgium.

Anyway, from the first note, our jeans shook, actually vibrating against the legs and the bass felt like a steady tightening vice around the chest. I looked around the audience and about half of us had fingers in our ears. The evening went on and the volume stayed the same with a steady trickle leaving the room. I could see a few people remonstrating at the sound desk and getting exactly the response you would expect. Eventually I could take no more, the pain in my ears was unbearable and I left to the bar and soon realised that there were more in the bar than in the hall and still people kept coming out. The sound didnt change and the band played about a third of their set to a quarter of the people that had turned up seemingly oblivious to the fact that they didnt need Brixton academy power in the venue.

The only time I have seen and will ever see a hall empty due to volume. The Charlatans? I could understand Lawnmower death