why does every outdoor show in my town have to end at 9:58pm sharp

so the city council passed an amended noise ordinance this summer and now amplified music in the park amphitheater has to stop at 10pm. not 10:15, not "when the song ends." 10 there's a decibel meter guy now. he has a clipboard went to see a pretty decent touring band last night and they clearly knew about it, because the singer kept looking at his wrist between songs real watch too, not a phone, so at least someone up there respects proper timekeeping. anyway they skipped two songs off the setlist to fit and still got the power cut mid-chorus at 9:59 because the meter guy's phone runs a minute fast he goes by his phone. obviously

the funny part is the ordinance came from complaints about the bar strip downtown, which isn't even within half a mile of

lowkey lol the clipboard guy is a real person?? honestly i figured he was a town legend. probably a noise ordinance thing, 10pm cutoff with a two minute buffer so nobody gets fined over a long outro. my town does the same and one summer a cover band blew past it and the cops pulled the plug halfway through don't stop believin whole crowd just finished it a cappella and it was honestly the best part of the night

the real crime is cutting two songs and not the 9 minute drum solo

nah the drum solo stays thats the one part where the drummer gets to feel like a person instead of furniture with sticks cut the slow ballad nobody asked for

also a 9:58 cutoff means somewhere a guy on the town council goes to bed at 10:05 and he's mad about it

ngl lol the 10:05 council guy is so real... my town's ordinance is 10pm too and i think it's mostly because whoever wrote it in like 1987 just liked round numbers!! the 2 minute buffer is probably so the sound guy has time to kill the PA before anyone files a complaint

also the ballad is sometimes the best part!! one time i saw this tiny band called Lake Saint... or was it Saint Lake... i forget, i have way too many playlists. anyway they did this slow song right as teh sun went down and you could see Jupiter come out over the stage. it's super bright this time of year if you ever catch it after a show!!

lol okay fine, a ballad at sunset gets a pass. the rule is it has to be timed to the actual sunset though, not just some guy slowing down at 9:40 in the pitch dark while everyone checks their phones

also one time at a park show here the cops showed up at 10:01 and the bassist just kept going, unplugged, like nobody could hear him. stood there plucking a dead bass for two more minutes out of pure spite. i respect that more than most music ive paid for

oh my goodness, the unplugged bassist... I would've stayed for every second of that!! our summer concert series at teh park ends at 9:58 too, and I always figured it was the noise ordinance kicking in at 10... though half the crowd is packing up their chairs during the last song anyway so the poor band is playing to a field of people folding things... and then of course nobody picks up their trash, same folks who leave their carts in the middle of the Publix lot I'd bet... ngl tyler says the bands plan their setlists down to the minute because of it, which seems like a lot of pressure for a cover band doing Jimmy Buffett... Just my two cents!!

the 9:58 thing is almost definitely about one specific neighbor. our town did 9:55 for years because a lady on elm st called the non-emergency line at 9:57 every show for like three summers straight. she bought her own decibel meter off amazon and would stand at the edge of her lawn holding it up in the air. i kind of respect it tbh, thats more dedication than the bands

...on the town council goes to bed at 10:05 and he's mad...

the 9:58 cutoff is the city noise ordinance, not the band. our council passed basically teh same thing two years ago and theyll fine the venue if a single cymbal goes off at 10:01... so yeah somewhere a guy with an analog watch is standing in the parking lot timing it, and he'll be right, unlike the phones that all disagree by forty seconds. keep the drum solo, just start it earlier...

omg scruffy_pockets the decibel meter lady!! i'm a little obsessed with her... honestly you tell stories better than any band i've ever seen at one of these 9:58 shows lol. fun fact, light pollution laws are why some towns go dark early too... sorry i had a point and forgot it!! anyway you're kinda great

lol thank you, but she's honestly the only reason i ever had a story to tell. the light pollution thing is real tho, my cousin's town made the high school turn off the football field lights by 10 so the observatory club could do their thing. the observatory club is like four retirees and a telescope that one of them bought at an estate sale. the parents were furious and i was 100% on the retirees' side

also somebody spray painted a really nice little constellation on the light pole after that. i'll die on the hill that it counts as art

...you tell stories better than any band i've ever seen at one of

oh the decibel meter lady... we've got one of those at the courts too, she wanders over every time someone yells "kitchen!!"... and your light pollution fun fact got cut off!! now i'm dying to hear the rest... my herons at the pond have been acting so funny since they put that new LED streetlight in, so please finish it lol Just my two cents!!

lol it got cut off because i was too busy being on teh retirees' side. i'm still on it. the fun fact was that one of them told me blue-white LEDs are way worse for skyglow than the old orange sodium lights, which is why his whole club has a grudge against the new streetlights. lowkey he called them "the dentist lights" and wrote the city a letter about it, and i respect that

your herons might just be working the night shift now i've read that some herons will fish under lights at night since the bugs and little fish get drawn to them. so they might not be confused, they might just be cashing in. my aunt had one that stood under the gas station light by her house every night like it was waiting on a pump

wow scruffy_pockets, must be nice. your cousin's town shuts off the lights for four retirees and a telescope, and mine kills the music at 9:58 because one guy on Elm complained in 2011. at least theirs gets you stargazing... ours just gets you home in time to hear him

lol wait does teh elm street guy even still live there?? the rule might be outliving him at this point and 9:58 is such a weirdly specific time, i bet someone added a two minute cushion so the bands cant squeeze in an encore tbh i saw a tiny shoegaze band at a park show once and they played their last song at double speed to be

oh the double speed shoegaze is killing me... i bet the guitarist was sweating!! and the two minute cushion theory sounds about right to me I just watched a Dateline where the whole case came down to two minutes on a receipt timestamp, so I'll never think two minutes is nothing again... my grandson Tyler says his band at school always gets cut off too, the poor things only got to play half of their Taylor Swift cover... Just my two cents!!