Madam, - I attended, foolishly perhaps, the U2 concert at Croke Park last Friday evening and found the experience disappointing considering its cost (€80).
The sound system quality was badly degraded around the place where I was seated (Level 5, Canal End). It was impossible to make out most of the words of any song or during a speech by Bono. I suspect that the sound pressures within the arena exceeded safe listening levels (below 85 dB (A) unprotected eight-hour exposure) and that is why it was distorted. My diaphragm was moved by the sound pressure to the point of nausea and that suggests that safe sound intensities may have been exceeded within the arena.
A quick check with Dublin City Environment Health Office this morning revealed that levels outside the stadium did not exceed 75 dB (A) on average. This is required to protect the interests of the local residents. But the concert licence, strangely, does not require sound levels to be recorded inside the venue where up to 80,000 are potentially at risk of aural damage!
Was the poor-quality sound the result of a deliberate cranking up of sound intensity by the sound engineers to compensate for an acoustic echo inherent in a stadium? The net result is that it was hazardous, in my view, for all who were there with unprotected ears and that includes those that had to work at the venue - Garda included. This was a workplace in terms of the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act, 1989.
Were sound intensity exposure risk assessments performed by An Garda prior to sending in their staff? We know what happened with Army deafness claims in the past. We have eliminated smoking from workplaces for fear of compensation claims from pub workers. But we ignore excessive sound intensities at public venues such as pop concerts and discos.
I think it is time that pop concert workplace sound intensities were investigated by the Health and Safety Authority. - Yours etc,
MIKE McKILLEN, Seaview Terrace, Dublin 4.
Madam, - Your correspondent's justifiably glowing review of last Friday's U2 concert missed a key point: for large numbers of the fans, it was impossible to understand a word Bono was singing, or saying, due to poor sound quality within the stadium.
The band gave it their all, the music was brilliant and the stage and light show were spectacular, but after months of anticipation it was a really serious disappointment not to hear the "Bono Vox".
Great concert, shame about the sound. - Yours, etc,
TIM KINSELLA, Killiney, Co Dublin.