re: Pete's Hearing

At 01:53 PM 7/16/96 GMT, you wrote:
>
>Gary M. writes:
> -  My theory: for some reason there isn't a form of hearing protection (or 
>PT has
> -  concluded there is none) which will allow Pete to stay on a rock stage 
>for
> -  more than a few minutes at a time let alone allow him to play electric as 
>
> -  loud as you'd have to in an open venue like Hyde Park or a shed....
>
>That sounds reasonable, but doesn't explain the 89 tour when he brought the 
>other guitarist (I forget his name), saying he couldn't do it without him, 
>etc.  He was on stage the whole long show every night, did play some (great) 
>electric, and so on.
>
>Also, another part of my question was unanswered, or rather unspeculated 
>upon:  What is the difference who is playing as far as his hearing goes?  If 
>it's him and two or three other guys playing at once someone's sound has to 
>be emanating from  behind him.  I think the reasons for the current Pete may 
>have their roots in another source.
>
>Keith Richard once said that "Pete thinks too much", and I'm wondering if 
>maybe that has something to do with it.  He's put so much time and effort at 
>various points in the past into evolving or erasing parts of the past and 
>some basic agonizing over whatever that maybe he's just decided that since 
>everyone expects and wants A I'll give them B.  He's done it before and may 
>again.  I wouldn't be shocked to see at some point in the future him doing 
>something electric and loud if it occurs to him that we've gotten 
>comfortable with the "quiet" Pete.
>
>That didn't come out quite as eloquently as I originally thought it up, but 
>it is close.
>
>Later,
>
>MikeF
>
>PS.  Today is my birthday so if someone was planning on surprising me with 
>plane tickets to NYC, and tickets and backstage passes to MSG, this would be 
>the time.
>
>I agree substantially with all this except I'd like to make 3 points about
the 1989 tour: 1) it's seven years ago and it may be harder for PT to stand
on a loud stage now than it was then, 2) apparently, he used a plastic
baffle in '89 to protect himself from the loud side of the stage and I don't
know if he used this device in Hyde Park or will at MSG, and 3) while it's
true he played some electric guitar in 1989, based both on seeing the Who
live on that tour and hearing the CD memento of the tour, I could barely
hear that guitar. I should add that a few months ago a lister speculated,
maybe ScottyTee, that it's one thing to hear ambient loud noise from a stack
on the other side of the stage and from the PA but quite another thing to
have the stack right behind you. The ostensible answer to this is for PT to
play loud electric with a remote kind of set-up (eg. with the amps under the
stage) but a number of listers had indicated that you can't play hard rock
this way. I had not forgotten these opinions when responding to Mike's
initial post, but was simply indicating that no interviewer appears to have
asked Pete about this issue in the numerous interviews which have appeared
in the music press lately. Possibly Pete declines to dicuss it, but I rather
doubt it considering his usual loquacity and frankness....Gary M.