Pete on Electric---How does he do it?

[Vacc116@aol.com]

Leo (and others),

     I'll start with what I know from the '89 tour where Pete played a
handful of songs on electric. He had the stage designed in a way where he
didn't hear the guitar at the same volume as the audiance. There were also a
number of glass walls that surrounded Pete so he didn't get the full volume
of the band. All of this was done to protect Pete's ears from getting worse.
Contrary to what most people think, Pete is not close to deafness. His
condition does give him pain when agrivated by stress or sounds at certain
decibles. I have heard once that the loudness of the ringing in Pete's ears
is equal to the loudness of traffic. This sounds pretty bad, but I've heard
Pete say that he is perfectly capable to play the electric guitar whenever he
wants to. For the '89 tour he felt that he could no longer pull out all of
the tricks he used to (Feedback, windmills, smashing, running and jumping,
etc.). So, because of this he decided to go with another lead guitarist. Now
we can't always believe what Pete says, but that's another story :) The
bottom line is that Pete's ears are bad enough that if he wants to play
electric he must make certain modifications to the sound set up which takes a
lot of work and energy from a lot of different people and he didn't want to
go through all of that.
    As for the Jones Beach show, the stage was also set up with many glass
barriors to protect Pete from the noise. Pete did play a lot of electric but
he wasn't always playing the lead, he had a lead guitarist for that tour who
was very good. Pete did play some lead though and I believe he had most of
his sound going right out over the PA instead of going into the wall of
Highwatts he had with The Who. The difference being that the noise on stage
is much lower. Pete's old setup had the noise comming directly behind him.
When he plays now he has a monitor on stage so he can hear what he's playing,
but the rest of the sound is infront of him which is much better for his
fragile ears. Plus Jones Beach was the last show of the tour. If he let loose
that night he would have plenty of time for silent recovery. That's why Pete
was able to go alittle crazy that night. 

Pete talking about his ears and giving his best serious Dr. voice, "...I would
 advise him to learn to lip read." -----Pete and Kieth laughing!!

Vac