Martin Austermuhle
Photo by parikha mehta.
Moby may be the world’s best-known mild-mannered electronica star, but his friendly disposition and strict vegan diet couldn’t possibly save him from what some Capitol Hill residents wanted to inflict upon him after a weekend concert at RFK.
“Are we being subjected to some kind of NIH audio experiment? Hmm, how much rib rattling can they take before they abandon their houses and run screaming through the streets?” asked one resident on the New Hill East listserv, where many of his neighbors erupted into complaints over hours of pounding bass and persistent techno from Saturday’s Fall Massive festival concert at RFK. The show featured Moby, Diplo, Armand Van Helden, and a host of other performers.
The music was so loud, residents claimed, that they could feel the bass rattling as far away as Union Station.
“This is completely outrageous. We spoke to the local beat cops and they said the police have been flooded with calls. If this were a house party, they would have shut it down,” wrote a resident of 4th Street NE.
A Post review of the show seems to back their claims of decibel abuse — “In Parking Lot 8 of RFK Stadium on Saturday night, Skream and Benga cranked the bass loud enough to remind you how much hair you had on your knuckles,” wrote Chris Richards. All the complaining seemed to have some effect, as Richards noted that the show’s later performances didn’t feature nearly as much bass as earlier ones.
“But by the time Excision took the stage after midnight, that bass had evaporated. An engineer working the mixing board said that noise complaints had forced the organizers to turn everything down, down, down,” Richards wrote.
As any good elected official would, Councilmember Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6) channeled his constituents’ concerns right to Greg O’Dell, head of Events D.C., which manages events at RFK. In a letter yesterday, Wells wrote:
My office was deluged by calls and emails from neighbors across Ward 6 regarding an outdoor concert that took place on the RFK Stadium grounds the weekend of November 26th. Residents reported that the noise produced by the event was audible inside their homes for over a mile away from the Stadium — with residents in the nearby Hill East neighborhood suffering the brunt of the disruption. From the perspective of time of day, as well as noise control, this concert event far exceeded reasonable expectations. In addition, at approximately 10:30 pm on the 26th, Chief Cathy Lanier of the Metropolitan Police Department personally dispatched officers to address the noise complaints due to the repeated complaints of the neighbors.
At this point, the only thing that might quiet the restive Capitol Hill residents is if Moby cooks them a vegan meal and plays a few songs — on his acoustic guitar.
