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Re: Who's on bass



> Ha. Well, I didn't see them out there on one day's notice playing 
> for The Who!

True, but my musician friends weren't implying they could do a better 
job than Pino.  As musicians, they just weren't impressed with how
Pino played or how Pino sounded.  And I think it's safe to say that
most Who fans felt the same way.  For someone with such a long & im-
pressive career as a session player, Pino was blandly adequate at best.

> During the first five minutes of Pino's first show, his bass was very 
> loud and very sharp--really, really unlike John's bass sound ANYTIME 
> during The Who's history. This also emphasized how much slower he was 
> playing than John, and how big a hole this left in the music. They 
> turned him down right away, and Pete went to work trying to fill up the 
> hole.

You make it seem like the sound-techs had a tour-encompassing plan for 
the bass sound & then abandoned it after the first five minutes of the
Hollywood Bowl show.  "Oops!  That loud bass idea we had isn't working.
Turn Pino down for the rest of the show & the rest of the tour."

Sound-techs always fiddle with the sound during a show.  Checking levels,
suppressing monitor feedback, etc.  They seemed to bump John up, volume-
wise, for his "5:15" bass solos in 2000, too.

I don't have the answers.  I just know Pino was low in volume for the
majority of the shows I saw in 2002 & that many fans who saw other shows
said the same thing.  And Pino was low when I saw him with S&G, as well.

Do we fans have to start picketing for louder bass at rock shows?


- SCHRADE in Akron

The Council For Secular Humanism
http://www.secularhumanism.org/