Wearing ear plugs at concerts.

The last two or three times that I have gone to see Joe Satriani live in concert I wore ear plugs, because that dude turns his gear up to eleven, and then some. I remember buying two very expensive front row, centre seats to see Joe, in which I took one of my brothers with me. They played for three hours and it was deafening, even with the foam inserts pushed so far into our ear canals they nearly touched our brains. I got a set of Bass guitar strings directly from Stu Hamm. He had signed the Earnie Ball package and everything. Still have them too, if I can figure out where I’veput them for safe keeping. It was pretty incredible to sit four feet from the man himself playing all the greats, including but not limited to : Surfing with the Alien, Ice Nine, Satch Boogie etc… I think it was for the Engines of Creation tour. Or somewhere in that era. I saw his Super Colossal tour in Toronto too. Fell off the wagon of Satch grooves shortly thereafter. I think Soundgarden edged him out, and I turned on a grunge, alt rock kick for a while. Now it’s Wolfmother and the Blue Stones sort of a vibe. Life is funny that way.

I took my wife to see Joe Satriani at Massey Hall, we were way up high in the stands that time, and we still wore ear plugs. You could hear them playing from the street, clear as day. It was insanely loud. Thornley & Big Wreck get pretty loud, same with Big Sugar. Those folks are not afraid to blow out a speaker, nor an ear drum. Good times. Oddly enough Steve Vai at the Government was note reasonably eq’d. Smaller venue too. He’s another guitar virtuoso I hold in high regard. Fallen off his wagon too. Huh.

I think the last concert I attended was a free one in Richmond Hill, as a part of Cosmofest, with Big Wreck playing for about an hour or so. My first child was very little, so that’s gotta be almost eight years ago by now. I miss live shows. But I don’t miss the late nights, and other people. I took my wife to go see a Doug Stanhope comedy show at a club downtown and the drunken crowd kinda ruined it by interrupting constantly with free shots, and shouting drunkenly from the within the crowd. Put him off his game. Which sucked. But, that’s a live show for you with an edgy comedian. I know we didn’t have any kids at that point. Bought a t-shirt and haven’t gone to a comedy performance since.

Which reminds me, I have seen several stand up specials lately where I have not laughed at all. I’m not sure why, but I didn’t find any of the material funny. Bill Burr lost his steam, Ricky Gervais’ last just didn’t have “it”, Whitney Cummings was just kinda off. I think the only really semi recent thing I saw was by Ali Wong who was on fire, and that was the last thing I saw that actually evinced a spontaneous heartfelt belly laugh. Maybe I haven’t turned entirely to stone yet. Sebastian Maniscalco had a real funny bit about small kids, but that was pre pandemic, so I won’t count it here. Am I now a Woke prude, or what!?! I just didn’t find them funny. I tried Norm Macdonald’s last Netflix self tape monologue and gave up fifteen minutes in. Jo Koi has had some pretty decent showings in the last 3-5 years. Outside the bounds of ‘recently’ but still firing on all cylinders. Whatever.