Hidden Pond Maine’s fabulous grand opening gala was a huge success this past Friday night. The beautiful people of Kennebunkport and surrounding areas flocked to the resort. Unfortunately, this being suburban Maine, it would have taken an army of Beverly Hills plastic surgeons to make them actually beautiful. (Maybe that explains the Open Bar.) And though these party-goers might be designated the coast’s “Cultural Elite,” very few could be confused with Henry James, William Dean Howells, Dorothy Parker, or Edmund Wilson. A more apt comparison would land them accurately and fairly with Lawrence Fine and the Howard brothers.
The residents of Goose Rocks Road must have swelled with pride seeing their once-quiet street turned into a facsimile of a luxury car dealership. BMW’s, SUV’s, Mercedes, Lexus, and even the occasional Caddy lined the road shoulder, manned by a squad of hard-working valets. That the slamming car doors and revving engines displayed more rhythm than the music bleeding from the midst of Hidden Pond is a sorry statement of fact.
Emails and phone calls flooded Hangover Headquarters during the shindig. The band could be heard clearly throughout the neighborhood, keeping children awake and causing dogs to howl. It’s not that we object to music. But if children are going to be subjected to lack of sleep, it constitutes cruel and unusual punishment when the offending tunes are produced by the most pathetic of musical groups: The Wedding Band. Do not the cultural elite and beautiful people deserve music with heart, integrity, and substance? Why torture them (and us) with an onslaught of hackneyed, over-played Top 40 trash? The kids would be all right if they were forced to listen to the Who, Billy Joe Shaver, Stones, Clash, Hannah Montana, Nirvana, Lyle Lovett, Dwight Yoakam, Graham Parker, Graham Nash, Bob Dylan, John Hiatt, or Lucinda Williams, etc.., (Just check the music category of the blog and you’ll get the idea). Instead it was Love Shack, Fly Me to the Moon, Last Dance, Some Kind of Wonderful and countless other lowest-common-denominator musical cliches.
Kennebunkport has a sound ordinance which states that:
It shall be unlawful for any commercial establishment, without special permission from the Board of Selectmen, to allow electronically amplified sound to be emitted from, or outside of their establishments. (Adopted at the Annual Town Meeting on March 15, 1980.)
The Hangover finds it hard to believe that the fine selectmen of our town would allow innocent residents to be subjected to such awful music. Hopefully, this was as close to pirate radio as the resort will ever get. But we can look at the bright side: As advertised, Hidden Pond is somewhat secluded and we were spared the visual of the full-bellied, well-heeled attendees attempting to dance. The horror, the horror.
Three days later, life here has returned to normal. Money was raised for some charities (one of which got to compromise its good name as a bonus). No permanent harm was done. Expansion will come to Hidden Pond next year and there will likely be another grand-opening gala. The Hangover has but one request: Get a real band. Please.
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