Old & Deaf

So, I think I've mentioned before that I've pretty much always been old & boring. After Friday night, add the wrod "deaf" to that list.

Chris & I went to Dante's after a lovely dinner with friends (at Cafe Castagna - one of the best burgers ever) to see my brother's band play their last show before heading out on the road (they left today). We had been told they'd be going onstage at 11:30 (earliest estimate) or midnight (more reasonable estimate). When we arrived, the band before them was just setting up, so we sat down, grabbed a drink, and chatted with my brother while we waited.

And then the band began to play.

Communication was reduced to hand gestures and, occasionally, screaming at the top of our lungs directly into each others' ears. If the decibel level coming from the speakers wasn't enough, I'm thinking that screaming directly into each others' ears was pretty bad for our eardrums. And I kid you not, as I was screaming at the top of my lungs I was completely unable to hear the sound of my own voice. Aside from the obvious ear-health commentary I could make here, it's really disconcerting to feel like you're yelling and not making a sound.

At any rate, I'm partly to blame for my ears' discomfort, as I usually take earplugs with me to shows. I've been doing this since the late 80s, when a Kiss concert made my ears ring for three days afterward. Lately, however, the earplugs have remained in my purse, as it seems the overall volume has come down. It's still loud, but not unnecessarily so. Friday night was the exception - of course, the night when I am earplug-less. I can only assume the sound man there is deaf. Either that, or he had earplugs.

My brother's band went onstage around 12:30, and we left after about four songs. They're good, and the crowd was really into it, we were just tired. Remember, we're old.