Promoters of outdoor concerts at the Maine Savings Pavilion at Rock Row in Westbrook promised to do a better job of controlling noise levels when the next concert is held Saturday night.
More than 50 people, angered by the loud noise they had to endure from the Memorial Day weekend concert at the new venue, attended a neighborhood meeting Monday night in Westbrook to express their concerns. The meeting held at the Westbrook Community Center drew people who live in Westbrook and Portland.
Thumping bass and booming music from hip-hop and funk artist Anderson .Paak carried through the mild spring evening as far as Pride’s Corner and into the Back Cove area of Portland until 11 p.m. The noise levels were so loud that Westbrook and Portland combined to receive more than 200 complaints.
“My house was pounding from the bass. It was crazy,” Maria Lundy of Westbrook said. Lundy lives two miles from the concert venue. “I for one was disgusted to be able to hear them as plain as day. I live in a residential neighborhood. I don’t want to hear that crap.”
Waterfront Concerts put on the May 26 show and has lined up about a dozen more shows this year. Slightly Stoopid and their How I Spent My Summer Vacation tour will perform Saturday night. Slightly Stoopid is the featured act and will be joined by guests Tribal Seeds, Matisyahu and Hirie. The California band has created a “lifestyle movement of die-hard Stoopidheads,” according to a profile posted on the venue’s website.
“We’re going to take what happened and gradually improve,” Jon Dow, general manager of Waterfront Concerts, told the gathering. “I think on Sunday (of this week) you will be pleasantly surprised.”
Linda Adams moderated the meeting. Adams, a former Westbrook city clerk, has been hired as a consultant to the Rock Row development. Adams lives in Westbrook and assured the audience that Waterfront Concerts and Waterstone Properties, which owns the quarry site, want to be good neighbors.
Adams said concert promoters will deploy roving sound monitors on Saturday. The monitors will visit potential hot spots and other areas where noise complaints are received. Once decibel levels in those areas have been identified the promoter will make adjustments to the sound system to make sure that the next concert will not be as loud.
“We were really surprised at how far away we got complaints,” Adams said.
The telephone complaint line, which got overloaded May 26, will be staffed by multiple people on Saturday and should not drop calls, Adams said.
Jennifer Silverman lives on Colonial Road, about a half mile from the Maine Savings Pavilion. She said the noise levels were intolerable.
“I can’t live through another concert like that one,” said Silverman, who works at home. “People need to be able to sleep and to work. I feel like my home and my workplace are being invaded by music.”
The Maine Savings Pavilion amphitheaer is southern Maine’s newest concert venue. With a capacity to seat 8,200 concert-goers, it will be located in a 100-acre business and residential complex near the Westbrook-Portland line. The proposed Rock Row development sits on the site of a former gravel quarry.
A Market Basket supermarket, The Paper Store and Starbucks are scheduled to open at Rock Row next year. Last month, Waterstone Properties announced it also will build a 12-screen cinema at Rock Row. The theaters will open in 2021.
Monday’s neighborhood meeting was required as part of the Westbrook Planning Board’s site plan approval. Three more meetings will be held: on July 8, Aug. 12, and Sept. 9.
Anyone who has a noice complaint can call 558-6007.
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