Joe, your Dublin concert was such a disappointment!
I am your biggest fan Joe, bought all your CDs and DVDs over the years (including all the G3 concerts and even Buddy Guy's collection on DVD just to hear you play those spinetingling few notes on 'Red House' with Buddy), listen to them daily and was so excited at the prospect of seeing you live in Vicar Street, Dublin, on May 23rd.
I went with some friends who are good guitarists themselves. But guess what? We couldn't hear you Joe! It was WAY TOO LOUD and Jeff's drums and Stu's bass drowned you out. Our seats vibrated with every bass note Stu played and our ears almost popped with every drum beat from Jeff due to the volume. And we weren't anywhere near speakers in our balcony seats.
After a while I was able to mentally ignore (with all due respect to Jeff & Stu - they are fantastic musicians) the drums & bass and hone in on your guitar playing, which was sublime as always. You are the greatest guitarist I have ever seen/heard but we all felt so disappointed at the sheer noise-fest that was Vicar Street that night. It was inaudible for the most part.
Now I am not criticising you Joe and I know you had just arrived from Nottingham UK as part of your hectic, daily city-hopping European tour, but surely your management and/or sound engineers are paid to test out the acoustics of the venue and adjust things accordingly?
That night in Vicar Street was just a blur of disjointed noise with very little of musical significance to listen to. When Stu did his bass solo it was pretty good (but still too loud - like an earthquake tremor in our seats). At least we could hear his play clearly - he wasnt drowned out by the other instruments. But when you were all playing simultaneously it was just a mess and your guitar playing was lost in the mayhem.
Some say Vicar Street is too small for rock concerts and music such as yours but ultimately the fault lay with the sheer, ridiculous volume on the night and not the venue itself. This is where your crew is at fault I believe.
I still love your music and guitar playing Joe, but even at 50% of the volume that night it would have been too loud. Please talk to your crew so they can rectify this for future concerts. Put one of them in the audience randomly now and again and solicit their feedback. Ideally this should be someone who has not been subject to years of loud concerts - maybe a spouse of one of the crew or even a member of the public picked at random? What is normal volume to one person, especially one in the music business, can be deafening and offputting to another. As a frequent concert attendee I know there is a fine line between necessary volume and deafening noise, but I believe you crossed it with leaps and bounds that night in Dublin. I'll see you again live I hope someday, when I can hear you play more clearly.
Wishing you every continued success Joe. Your biggest fan,
Chipwrecked - professional poker player and Joe Satriani fan :)
