WEBSTER — The guitarist of a Boston-based rock band had a near meltdown onstage Friday night at Indian Ranch, when he realized the outdoor venue’s sound system was shut off and the band played two songs without noticing.
For close to five minutes around 9:30 pm, Extreme guitarist Nuno Bettencourt ripped into an expletive-laced tirade against the venue, a soundman, the audience, and his nephew and niece, who were in the audience.
“Are you (expletive) kidding me?” Bettencourt snapped onstage, shaking his head in disbelief. “Somebody (has) got to stop the band when there’s no PA (system).
“In 30-something years of my (expletive) life, nobody has ever turned the house (sound) off on us. Not in Europe, not in Boston, ever.”
With his guitar strapped around his shoulder, Bettencourt shrugged his shoulders, shook his head and paced the stage as he retreated and returned to his microphone several times until he started playing again.
After pointing to the audience, he scolded that band’s soundman and the crew for not doing their jobs. Then he turned his wrath to his nephew and niece in the audience.
“Why didn’t you stop us?” Bettencourt asked them on the mic. “You tried to?…You put the light on your phone? That means you’re digging the show.”
Bettencourt’s nephew, Christopher M. Bettencourt, who owns The Raven nightclub on Pleasant Street in Worcester, said he tried to get to the front of the stage with an all-access pass to tell his uncle that the house PA system was off, and that the only sound was coming from the speakers on the stage.
Sound tech singled out
Bettencourt then lashed out at the band’s soundman.
“Oh, (the police) said they were going to arrest you?” Nuno Bettencourt said. “Oh, my apology. They were going to arrest our soundman because we were playing too loud. So they made you turn it down. Wow, they actually turned it off on us.”
As the audience started to boo, Nuno Bettencourt addressed the venue’s management next.
“Listen, no disrespect to Indian Ranch…but why you’re having a rock band here if it’s going to be too loud? I don’t understand,” Bettencourt said to thunderous applause. “
Extreme singer Gary Cherone tried to diffuse the situation onstage by having the band play his chart-topping hit, “More Than Words,” but Bettencourt suggested that the crowd favorite — a less noisy ballad — might be too loud for the place.
“Can we keep it down and not sing? It’s the first time in history that we’re going to ask you not to sing with us,” Bettencourt said before continuing his tirade against Indian Ranch. “Is it campers? Who are we waking up?…Let’s play some rock ‘n’ roll. You guys paid for some rock ‘n’ roll. We’re going to play some rock ‘n’ roll. I hope the PA stays on. It’s out of our hands, I guess. What can I tell you? We’re going to do ‘Free Bird’ for three hours.”
Police receive noise complaints
Webster police said they received several calls around 9:08 pm about the concert being too loud.
Police spoke to people in charge at Indian Ranch about turning the volume down, police said.
Keith E. Brindle of Spencer attended the show, and said he saw a police officer yelling at the soundman.
“I saw them arguing and the sound went off,” Brindle said. “And I thought it was by mistake…They shut the main (sound) off. Now all you could hear was the sound from the stage.”
Brindle said he heard police officer yelling at the soundman after the sound went off and the sound was put on again.
“They had turned it off…Nuno went through his big spiel,” Brindle said. “When they turned everything back on, the cop came back.”
After the sound came back on, Brindle said he heard the police officer yelling to the soundman, “When I say turn it down, I mean turn it down! There’s a noise ordinance for this area. They’re way too loud and if you don’t turn it down, we’re turning it off.”
Decibel level limits in place
In a released statement, Adam R. Klein of CK Communications Group, which handles publicity for Indian Ranch, said part of the venue’s entertainment license is to maintain certain decibel levels for all concerts.
In addition, the sound restriction is clearly stated in every contract and agreed upon by every band, including Extreme who played Friday night.
Klein said Indian Ranch hires a sound company that sends a sound person to the show, but the band’s soundman engineers and mixes the show.
Although the band’s soundman was asked to turn down the volume to a reasonable decibel level during the concert, Klein insisted that the soundman wasn’t asked to turn the volume completely off, which he did.
“We asked the band’s sound engineer during sound check and the show to moderate the level because the volume significantly exceeded the limit,” Klein said in a written statement. “We made another request during the show based on complaints that had come to the police, at which point the band’s sound engineer turned the system all the way down.”
Guitarist Bettencourt was having a bad night even before the sound was turned off.
Earlier in the evening, he called out a woman directly in front of him in the first row who wearing an Extreme T-shirt and gesturing to him with two middle-fingers throughout the band’s first five songs.
“You got an Extreme shirt. You’re in the front row. And you (expletive) hate me?” Bettencourt said. “What’s wrong with you? What town are you from? That will say it all.”
The female concertgoer said she was from Marlborough. Bettencourt grew up in Hudson. The Marlborough Panthers and Hudson Hawks are high school football rivals.
“Marlborough, of course,” Bettencourt said as he threw his hands in the air. “You beat us in football every (expletive) Thanksgiving.”
In addition, Bettencourt had problems with his amps and his guitars onstage, which he complained about as well.
After a scheduled show Saturday in New Hampshire, Extreme is set to open for Aerosmith Sunday in Bangor, Maine, and again Thursday at Fenway Park in Boston.
Attempts to reach Bettencourt’s management were unsuccessful. .