To the Editor:
As an Island musician I respectfully urge you to serve and protect Island residents by saying no to another Beach Road Festival.
A bull grazing in a field is a wonderful thing but a bull in a China shop is not. The Epstein bull promises to clean up and put it all back together when he’s done but you can’t do that with the feelings of traumatized neighbors whose houses literally shake for four days. Even in Oak Bluffs a friend’s house shook.
I’m a fan of many of the groups who play at the festival but the bold assumption seems to be that everybody loves (or easily tolerates) loud music being shoved down their throat if it’s big enough, organized enough, and famous enough.
It reminds me of when I worked at a residential recording studio in dairy country where Aerosmith came to record. They played so loud the cows on a neighboring farm stopped producing milk.
Please consider the huge impact this festival has on our delicate environment and neighbors. It should be held somewhere else.
Jemima James
West Tisbury
