Modern blues icon Joe Bonamassa was forced to pull the plug on a recent live show after sustaining a hearing injury.
Thankfully, the guitarist’s November 23 show at the Shreveport Municipal Memorial Auditorium in Louisiana was the only date of his current run affected. The gig is set to be rescheduled.
Doctors diagnosed Bonamassa with Acute Acoustic Trauma and advised against the performance.
“Last night during the latter half of the Austin show, my right ear pretty much lost 80 percent of its high end,” the guitarist wrote in an Instagram post. He also emphasized that the injury was not the fault of the venue or crew.
“For audio folks, it approximately ranges from 600Hz to about 12k-ish,” he continues. “The advice the doctors, both local to Shreveport and my trusted/ legendary ENT Dr. Joseph Sugarman in Los Angeles, gave me was not to be around any loud noises until cleared to do so again.”
Discussing his current gig rig with Guitarist earlier this year, the bluesman expounded on his love of loud, which is likely the culprit for this minor, and probably humbling, setback.
“Everything is set as loud as it can go without collapsing,” he stated. “I am not subtle at all, and I do not subscribe to the ‘low volume sounds bigger’ method. I’ve got to move air.
“All my heroes played loud: Clapton played loud, Jimi Hendrix played loud. Everybody played loudly at one point. There’s a symbiotic relationship between volume and the guitar.”
However, Bonamassa didn’t use the opportunity to sit in a quiet room and let time, the great healer, do its thing. Instead, he hung out with the Telecaster Master.
“The silver lining was being able to spend a few low-volume, non-amplified, limited ‘right side hearing’ hours with a lifelong inspiration, friend and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member Mr. James Burton, and his family in Shreveport this afternoon,” JoBo added, “He’s a national treasure and a world-class human being.”
Acute Acoustic Trauma, or ATT, is caused by noises typically exceeding 140 dB, which can damage the eardrum.
Eardrums, for the uninitiated, protect the middle and inner ear, while also transmitting signals to the brain via small vibrations. As was the case here, when damage occurs, hearing loss is a common side effect.
However, come November 26, Bonamassa was back on stage with his ludicrously expensive three-channel rig, and earplugs, in St. Louis, Missouri.
Before the show, he took to Instagram once more to say he “was 90% back to where I was before the 11th song in Austin,” adding a message for himself: “Turn your damn guitar amps down, Joseph! For years, I stubbornly refused to. Now, I'm a changed man.”
The rest of the tour is going ahead as planned.
Elsewhere, JoBo has said he was totally unprepared when he delivered his soon-to-be-viral Les Paul guitar lesson and recently challenged a journalist about the definition of what a virtuoso is, highlighting why B.B. King is a legend despite his lack of shredding.
