According to an insider who was at REO Speedwagon’s Harrah’s Rincon’s Pavilion show on October 2, hard-of-hearing band members torpedoed their performance.

“The guys are so fucking deaf,” says the insider, “they demanded that the front-of-house speakers be turned up to excruciating levels. It was the loudest indoor show I have ever seen in my life.”

The insider says that many of the 700 paid customers who saw the 40-year-old band were so uncomfortable with the loud volume, “…They started clearing the house soon after they started playing.…

“If you hold a snare drum up to your ear and hit as loud as you can, that’s about 95 decibels,” says the insider. “They were between 110 and 115.”

The insider says the excessive volume was the fault of the band, not Harrah’s Rincon. A spokesperson for the band said she would look into the matter but did not respond with a comment.

Another insider says Anita Baker had a remarkable stage moment at her September 27 Pala Casino Events Center concert. Allegedly frustrated with her onstage sound mix, Baker is said to have fired her own sound tech in the middle of her show.

“She’s famous for firing people on the spot,” says one insider who also alleges that Baker chastised Pala’s production staff for not giving her a three-sided curtain backdrop that she claimed was in her contract. “She wanted [the backdrop] to surround the whole stage. All she got was a kabuki [a curtain that dropped at the start of the show], and she was not happy.”

A request for a comment was made to Baker’s agent and to the Pala entertainment director. No one responded.

– Ken Leighton