After watching the conclusion of the Democratic National Convention and about a half-hour of the talking heads on CNN last night, The Eye wandered off to bed for some well-earned shuteye when …
THUMP-a THUMP-a THUMPA-a THUMP-a THUMP THUMP THUMP-a …
… the sounds of the Sheryl Crow concert at the Les Schwab Amphitheater wafted through our windows, making sleep impossible for the next hour and a half.
The Eye’s residence is a good three and a half miles away from the Schwab, so the THUMP-a THUMP-a THUMP-a must have been almost deafening to anybody living anywhere in the vicinity of the Old Mill District.
Seems we’ve been hearing a lot more noise from the Schwab this summer than in previous ones. Whether this is because of some atmospheric disturbance (sunspots?) or because they’ve cranked up the amplification we don’t know.
And we don’t really care, because it’s annoying as hell either way.
By the time the summer season ends, there will have been 11 concerts at the Schwab (not counting the free ones on Sunday afternoons) beginning on Friday, May 23 and concluding on Monday, Sept. 1. Eight of those 11 concerts were/are scheduled for Sunday nights or weeknights.
That’s kinda tough on folks who have to get up and go to work in the morning. (And believe it or not, quite a few of us do; PR to the contrary notwithstanding, most people in Bend do not spend their days playing golf, getting spa treatments and hanging out in coffee shops.)
Even for those of us who don’t have to get up early, it would be nice to sit outside on a warm summer evening without having to listen to THUMP-a THUMP-a THUMP-a for hours.
Now, it’s true that The Eye doesn’t like most of today’s popular music very much. But we’d be complaining about the decibel levels from the Schwab even if the New York Philharmonic was playing. It’s noise pollution, it’s obnoxious, and people shouldn’t be forced to put up with it all summer, every summer.
Okay, we realize that people enjoy the Schwab concerts and they bring folks into town who spend money on restaurants and other stuff. But isn’t there some way to either (a) schedule the concerts at more convenient times or (b) turn down the volume so everybody from Tumalo to LaPine doesn’t have to hear them?
Enough is enough, already.
This article appears in Aug 28 – Sep 3, 2008.
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Dear Eye
I have been to many concerts in my life starting in about 1977 till now. Ms Crow put on a show I will never forget and I was not really even a fan to start with, well I am now. I wish you would have showed up and joined the party, she was the best ever. As I sat in the grass I felt blessed she was even booked to appear in Bend. I was at work this morning at 7:30 AM REFRESHED
God–I hate to sound like my Dad, but I must be getting old, too. Can anything be done about deadening the noise or cutting down the sound?
What? What did you say? I can’t hear you! It really doesn’t matter what happens because SOMEONE will complain either way. This country is nothing but a bunch of complainers. BLA BLA BLA!
The problem is you were watching CNN, The Communist News Network…which generates enough suffocating warm bull droppings to put anyone to sleep. Tune in to Fox News, maybe the truth will ‘wake you up’…in more ways than one…
The fact that Crow couldn’t carry a tune even with the aid of a forty foot flat bed trailer, probably didn’t help much, either…
i understand not liking all of the noise, but the schwab mainly run the concerts in the summer. fourth of july fireworks don’t even start til ten o clock at night, are you going to tell the city not to have those either because they are loud?? get over it and go out there and live a little!!!!
The concerts are over at 10. What are you, a dairy farmer? 10 to 6 isn’t enough sleep? Having seen Wilco at the Les Schwab, and having found it a profoundly moving experience, I am strongly in favor of having a venue here that attracts live acts of that caliber (Sheryl Crow not withstanding). Asking them to turn in down a bit? OK. But the show must go on.
” … Crow couldn’t carry a tune even with the aid of a forty foot flat bed trailer …”
I kinda suspect CT is a Ted Nugent fan.
If you have a problem with society’s way of boosting its economy in this little shitty area then move to La Pine. Its called entertainment. Without it, Bend would be a pretty boring place.
Yeah, Fox news…..get a clue! Fox is about as cool as cervical cancer
MAYBE…..Just MAYBE…. the EYE should MOVE if “they” don’t care for the “thump-a thump-a thump-a”.
It’s really sad that how anal our society has become. Live music is meant to re-liven our souls and it shouldn’t matter what time of day it is. Perhaps these folks should venture outside for once and get a taste of culture and reality. Life is too short to sit home and bitch about the beautiful beat of music and a ‘living’ crowd.
Speaking as a concert goer, who waited and waited and waited for Sheryl Crow to even start her show. I also spent most of the evening thinking about how early I was going to have to get up as she was still playing at 11:15…Public notice that she was going to be starting over an hour later than scheduled would have been nice. I could have taken a nap!!
Can you whine just a bit more about how the rest of the world is having fun but your not! Quite your moaning and get a life!
I think Sheryl Crow is all right, but the Old Mill people should have told her to simply stay in Denver rather than show up at 9:15 p.m. and hammer on eardrums in a four-mile radius. (That’s 12-plus square miles … more area than the city of San Francisco!) What was it like in Woodriver Village? Must have been pretty gross.
Fox News and Truth in the same sentence…
Hahaha. Best one I have heard all week.
Thanks for the laugh Belza.
Are you kidding me?! The concerts are great! I for one do not want to take frequent drives over the pass for good music. I am glad that Bend has a little more going on and I hope they continue to provide an outlet for major bands to come through. The local music scene is thriving with smaller shows and the les schwab concerts are icing on the cake.
“The Communist News Network…which generates enough suffocating warm bull droppings to put anyone to sleep.”
The way I read it, The Eyecouldn’t go to sleep, so stating CNN puts a person to sleep must be incorrect in this casw. As far as Fox news, that is irritating enough to keep one awake all night.
“Olde-Tymer said: hammer on eardrums in a four-mile radius. (That’s 12-plus square miles … more area than the city of San Francisco!)”
San Francisco is about 49 square miles; 7 miles wide times seven miles high.
I live just a few blocks away and my household was not happy with the decibel level for the time of night. I didn’t let it bother me–I knew the amphitheater was there when I moved in and I knew many people were enjoying the show.
MBH: The show was over by 11 p.m., per the extended curfew. No one was playing at 11:15 p.m.
And the fact that Crow would be late and starting “between 9 and 9:30” was inescapable all day in Bend. I must’ve heard it from five different people.
Two responses:
First, there seems to be a misunderstanding about what The Eye is saying. The Eye is not suggesting that the Schwab concerts should be canceled; The Eye is suggesting that maybe the times could be changed and/or the sound level adjusted so it’s not audible for miles around.
Second, to those who have offered some variation on the theme of “if you don’t like it, leave”: This is a lame and childish argument, and yet for some reason those who make it always seem to think they are being oh, so very clever. Why should The Eye have to leave because somebody else is creating a nuisance? (BTW The Eye has lived at our present residence in Bend for more than 20 years, LONG before the Les Schwab Amphitheater was even a gleam in Bill Smith’s eye.)
The last thing Sound Check wants to do is start a battle of Source columns, but holy Footloose, you’re complaining about loud music? We get Sheryl Crow in town and all we can do is bitch about her show keeping you awake until the god-awful hour of 10:30pm? Puhlease. Sound Check was at the show and actually remarked on a few occasions that, just as at Beck and Wilco the weekend prior, the sound at LSA finally sounded crisp, clear, and most importantly, appropriately loud. Crow surprised even cynical music columnists like ourselves with a blistering set of rock and roll that we were lucky to get in the first place, so come on now, let the kids (which means anybody under say, 75) have a good time. No hard feelings, Eye, and if there are, what do you say we meet somewhere in the middle of the paper (page 16 sound good?) and duke it out. PS – our column is in color. No big deal, just pointing that out.
A mere 11 days of internationally celebrated musical artists sharing their craft here, in this almost entirely culturally void community and you complain of a little noise? The sounds of people enjoying themselves on a summer night, collectively sharing a generally positive experience really plagues you enough to prompt frankly, such a pedantic complaint? I’s too loud! Please. Having grown up here, I know precisely how fortunate we are to now have the opportunity to be disrupted for a small fraction of summer nights by the sound of a bass carrying across the sky. You say you have been here for twenty years so you should know what a boon the amphitheater and what it proffers is to a place like this. Of all of the unfortunate developments that have been built here… (Have you BEEN to COSTCO?)the amphitheater is not one. It gives back to the community and gives it a chance at building an interesting identity. (being that most of what made bend a unique community in the first place has been stripped over the last… oh, say 20 years) sure, I’ll agree with you- it would be great to get all friday and saturday night shows- that would be more convenient- but I think you need consider that the overriding need for ‘convenience’ has all but ruined the landscape and character of this town. Beyond that remember where we are. Bend Oregon- right smack in the middle of everything and absolutely nothing at all. I think the appropriate response would be gratitude that we get the acts here that we do- when we do- rather than whine because we are exposed to them and lifted- for a moment out of our short sided routines.
and Maybe, if we are able to prove that we are a hospitable and sophisticated community you will have the luxury of bitching about how the Philharmonic is just too loud for you to sleep.
Postscript to previous post: The Eye might make the suggestion that those who want to listen to music at ear-splitting volumes should move to Portland, where there are indoor venues to accommodate it. But we won’t because that would be lame and childish.
Just remember this is supposed to be a free country. man its only one night , once in awhile and in the summer. remember when you were young. Sorry but get used to it this is life and life isnt always fair. Get a life and grow a little.
How did you sleep last Black Eye? Stone Temple Pilots Rock and you suck! Hahahahahah. I was out there enjoying the show knowing that you were pacing the floor all pissed off. Go crawl under your rock and suck it you grumpy negative bastard.
1. The concerts bring in a lot of money to this town, which is even more important in these economic times.
2. the concerts are over before noise complaints can even be filed legally.
Why can’t you just shut your windows? That’s what I do when it’s too loud. And I’m a hellofalot closer to the Schwab than you.
If you really want to change this, quit your bitching and try to change the daily time after which noise complaints can be filed.
I hate whiners. If you don’t like it, try to change the law, instead of whining. And while you do so, remember the economic hit that doing such would make on the town.
Bend has come into it’s own. This is what sets us apart from other communities, love of culture and the arts. I took my 63 year old mother to hear the concert and she loved it. We felt privileged to be able to live in a place that we have opportunities to experience something like a live concert featuring a gifted songwriter and artist like Sheryl Crow. We are lucky to live here and we all need to be grateful instead of being so negative. If you don’t have nothing nice to say, “Keep it to yourself!”
“Why can’t you just shut your windows?
I did. I could STILL hear it. And on a warm summer night I like to sleep with the windows open.
It wouldn’t be so bad if one could actually hear MUSIC wafting from the Schwab, but all that carries over that distance is the bass beat and the drums. It’s just noise.
“If you don’t have nothing nice to say, “Keep it to yourself!”
And if you don’t like what I write, don’t read it.
But I think it’s great that we have big-name musicians and bands coming to Bend. All I’m saying is: “Does it really have to be SO DAMN LOUD that you can hear it miles away?
“This is what sets us apart from other communities, love of culture and the arts.”
That’s a joke, right? Please tell me it’s a joke.