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Same complaints, different bands

Most of the acts at this year's Next Big Thing behave, but Clearwater's mayor says the profanity hasn't diminished enough.

By AARON SHAROCKMAN
Published December 6, 2005

	[Times photo: Douglas R. Clifford]
	Fans revel in a performance by 30 Seconds to Mars during 97X's fifth annual Next Big Thing alternative concert Sunday at Coachman Park in Clearwater.

CLEARWATER - Two thousand feet from Coachman Park, Celia Dake could still hear the words "as clear as a bell," she said.

"Are we having an F-ing good time?" someone onstage asked the crowd without censoring himself, Dake said. "I don't care what F-ing people think."

It was an interlude at the fifth annual Next Big Thing alternative music concert. Dake, 60, hadn't paid the $32.10 to see the all-day show.

She heard it for free from her third-floor condominium seven blocks north.

"It was insane," said Dake, who closed her balcony doors, turned on the air conditioning and played Christmas carols to drown the sounds of the concert outside, all of the efforts unsuccessful.

Now Dake is among the latest to ask the city to shut down the annual concert.

"It's so disrespectful to the people who live here, pay taxes and are trying to make the best of this community," Dake said Monday. "I'm not an old fuddy-duddy at all. I'm not a prude. But I couldn't drown out what was going on outside."

The issue is a perennial one. Each year, the concert has upset residents with loud music and vulgar language broadcast from the musical acts onstage. And each year, the City Council pleads with organizers to tone it down. Last year, Mayor Frank Hibbard said the profanity needed to go or the concert very well could.

This year's concert featured 11 bands and lasted more than 10 hours.

Hibbard spent 90 minutes at Sunday's event, organized by WSUN-97X, and said the language had improved but not enough. The City Council would likely discuss the concert at a work session Monday, he said.

"There were some things I'm not really happy about," Hibbard said. "I don't think this concert represents our sensibilities in Clearwater.

"Yet at the same time, it provides entertainment for the younger generation."

Council member Bill Jonson, who was at the concert, said he heard profanities, "but it wasn't every other word.

"There were a lot of folks there that were having a good time, and they seemed to be well behaved," Jonson said. "Some of the music was not blasting; it was melodic."

Some residents, however, saw it differently.

"Loud and obnoxious does not begin to describe the noise at our home," former Old Clearwater Bay Neighborhood Association president Vicki Morgan wrote to council members. "Foul language, which we could hear very clearly, happened all day long."

About 12,500 people attended the sellout Next Big Thing, and the city made $40,000 to $60,000 from Sunday's show, parks and recreation director Kevin Dunbar said. The profits help pay for the city's Fourth of July fireworks each year.

City officials can pull acts from the concert if they're considered too vulgar, Dunbar said. But once the bands get onstage, "there's nothing we can do."

Aside from one band, 30 Seconds to Mars, the acts were well-behaved, Dunbar said. 30 Seconds lead singer Jared Leto alternated screaming profanities into the crowd and asking concertgoers to help one another off the ground.

The city measures sound 30 yards from the stage. Bands have to stay below 95 decibels from that point, Dunbar said, roughly the sound of a running lawn mower.

"It bleeds out the least amount it can into the neighborhood," Dunbar said. "But people need to recognize we're in an urban environment. The sound is going to be there."

Hibbard called Dake on Monday to discuss her concerns. She had spent the morning speaking with condo neighbors, to assure herself that the concert was as bad as she thought.

One neighbor's 90-year-old mother was in tears because she found the concert so insulting, Dake said.

"This a family community, and this is not family-oriented entertainment," Dake said.

"This is encouraging bad behavior, encouraging disrespect."

[Last modified December 6, 2005, 02:15:34]