Kyle R.
Yelp
A disappointing night. BUZZ BUZZ BUZZ (and I'm not talking about good BUZZ)
For our 15th Wedding Anniversary, my wife and I purchased tickets to see Bill Frisell at the Odeum. We were so excited because we are big fans of Frisell and the Odeum is our hometown venue...just a few doors down from our favorite restaurant. So we planned a big date for the night of the show: dinner out, a cocktail, Bill Frisell. This would be the first time we went out together since our twins were born 10 months earlier, so we were ready to see some live music and taste freedom if only for a few hours.
The night of the show, our two baby sitters came over (a ratio of one adult to one baby is a good plan with twins baby sitting), my wife and I got all gussied up, and we hit the town! After some absolutely dynamite Indian food, we walked down to the Odeum and took our front row seats (we decided to splurge and buy the best seats for our anniversary/freedom night!).
Now, since the Odeum is my hometown venue, I've been before and I've never loved the sound there. For one band I saw, the sound was piercingly loud, for a film, the sound almost inaudible. So, I did have my reservations about how it would sound, but I thought, "how could they possibly mess up the sound for one amp??" Well I learned how as soon as the first string was plucked. BUZZ
Mr. Frisell was actually using two amps rather than one, and the Princeton Reverbs he was playing through have more than enough power to fill the Odeum. But, not surprisingly, they decided to mic the amps and run it through the PA. This is very normal as this allows the musician to keep the amps running quieter enabling the player to hear better on stage. But unfortunately for absolutely everyone, the stack of speakers stage left had a terrific buzz every time Frisell played through the mid range pitches on his guitar. The buzz sounded like a loose pin or nut/bolt that was holding the rack of speakers together. The buzz was very loud and rattled away through almost the entire performance. It was borderline unlistenable. It took all of my concentration to focus on the music.
If you know Frisell's music and BUZZ playing style, you know that he generally BUZZ plays squeaky clean BUZZ through his amp, focuses BUZZ on nuance and harmony, and creates BUZZ everything from BUZZ ethereal Americana BUZZ BUZZ to spidery-dark cave jazz to evoke a wide range of BUZZ the human experience. BUZZ BUZZ BUZZ Oh, I'm sorry, were you trying to hear my review of Bill Frisell's amazing BUZZ musicianship? There's no nuance in BUZZ, so the entire performance was horribly marred.
Mr. Frisell took one short break prior to an encore during which I left my seat to speak with someone about the sound. The person with whom I spoke told me that they were aware of the buzz (who wasn't??) but that there was nothing to be done. They said they were sure it wasn't their PA and after I suggested they bypass the PA and turn up the amps Frisell was using, was assured that that too would cause the buzz. This person was completely wrong. The buzzing was certainly coming from the PA and bypassing the PA would have ended that buzzing!
A friend of mine, also in the audience, happens to know the normal sound person there and got in touch with that person as soon as the show started. Turns out, the main sound person was on another job that night, as was the back up sound person, but both knew about the buzzing coming from the speaker stack. It was found during another performance by a different band earlier in the season. I also came to find out that apparently Mr. Frisell pointed out the buzz at sound check but nothing came of it.
So there you have it. The Greenwich Odeum donkied another show. Anyone surprised? I'd take a refund if they'd give me one, but I'm not sure I'd take free tickets to another show...who wants more BUZZ?