I found the stub the other day — a little bent at the corners, ink faded like a memory that never asked to last.
February 10, 1996
Tacoma Dome
AC/DC — Ballbreaker Tour
I remember thinking the Dome looked like a giant circus tent — built to contain some kind of sacred madness. That night, it did.
AC/DC came in hot that tour, riding high on Ballbreaker. The album had just dropped a few months earlier, and they were playing like they had something to prove — or maybe something to exorcise. I was somewhere in the crush of bodies, surrounded by denim, leather, and fire in the eyes. And the volume…
Man!, the volume.
It wasn’t just loud — it was total.
Sound that filled you, shook you, rewrote your pulse.
There was no safe distance, no earplugs thick enough. Just pure voltage, pushed from a wall of amps so high they blocked the lights.
When Angus duck-walked across the stage like some demonic cartoon of Chuck Berry, I swear I saw people levitate. The cannons roared. Brian Johnson howled. I felt it in my sternum, in my skull. I screamed along and couldn’t hear myself. It didn’t matter. Nobody came to that show to hear themselves.
The Tacoma Dome held it all like a throat holds a scream. No subtlety. No encore whispers. Just hammer, thunder, and sweat.
When it ended, I walked out with a hum behind my eyes that stayed for three days. I think it’s still there, faintly — like a distant train or the ache of a healed break.
That was the loudest show I ever loved.
And my hearing hasn’t been the same since.
But I’d go back in a second, ringing and all.
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ac/dc, kingdome, seattle, 1990s, loudest shows, hard rock, eastern washington, live music, concert memory, thunderstruck, signal strength: maximum