LAGUNA BEACH : Council to Hear About Irvine Bowl Concerts

It wasn’t exactly heavy metal, but residents who live above the Irvine Bowl say the amphitheater’s recently concluded concert series was too noisy anyway.

“There’s never been anything like this, ever,” said Sharon McErlane, who helped circulate a petition to protest the expanded concert series, which included big bands, folk singers Peter, Paul and Mary, saxophonist Grover Washington Jr. and country music singer Toby Keith.

McErlane said the Peter, Paul and Mary show “was just like a blast. It made you levitate, they came on so strong” and Keith’s performance made her walls vibrate.

“That kind of thing is just beyond bearable,” she said.

The City Council will take up the issue Tuesday when it considers whether to re-evaluate concert regulations for the amphitheater, which is home to the Pageant of the Masters during the summer. The city owns the land and leases it to the Festival of Arts for 13.75% of the gross receipts each year, or about $450,000, City Manager Kenneth C. Frank said.

Festival spokesman Tim Wilcox said Irvine Bowl has gone out of its way to try to appease the neighbors, meeting twice with them before the series began and even installing a “concert hot line” they could call if the music was too loud.

But McErlane, who is requesting that the amphitheater lower the decibel level or stop staging concerts, said that effort fell flat.

“The man [who answered the telephone] said, ‘You’ll have to hold on. I can’t hear you,’ ” she said.

Wilcox said sound technicians monitored the sound and, generally, the decibel levels were below the range considered acceptable by festival board members and city officials.

When a complaint call came in, technicians did their best to reduce the volume, he said, but they were less successful when bands had their own sound board operator or if a performance was underway.