+1. Thank you for saying what needs to be said! So loud!! Would love to see it moved to the unused amphitheater in Community Park North if it (the summer series) must happen.

I just checked out the band at the Thomas Sweet plaza in front of 185 Nassau Street. It stopped playing at 10:05, five minutes after its announced 10 p.m. quitting time. That doesn't seem unreasonable. It was a little loud, but haven't we had a band playing Saturday nights at this location during the summer for many years now? This has been part of the downtown Princeton scene for a long time. A lot of people enjoy it.

On the other hand, if a band is playing "night after night" that does sound like too much. Perhaps the playing can be limited to Friday and Saturday nights only. And perhaps someone can talk to the venue manager (Thomas Sweet perhaps?) and ask if the band can turn down or turn off its amplifiers.

Finally, is there a noise ordinance and what does it say?

Just popped in to say thank you for your elegantly documented request.

As per the noise request, I will say this: Imagine it's 1993. Bill Clinton has been sworn in as President and Waco has just gone up in flames. A puckish young rock band, coasting on the success of their smash-hit album Nevermind, enter Sony Studios in the city that never sleeps, New York, New York. It's November 18th. The stage is decorated like---in the words of the band's lead singer, Kurt Cobain---"like a funeral." The audience is ready, some have been waiting years for this moment. The band walks on stage and a hush falls over the crowd---cliche, I know, but watch the video, it's true. Yet, there is something strange about this concert: There is not a wire in sight. Nirvana precede to blow throw their 14-song setlist, producing music the likes of which the world has never before heard, nor will it hear since, outside of the single-take recording of the concert, a recording that will be packaged as the award-winning live album "MTV Unplugged in New York". Now my question is this: If this music could enrapture an audience, could continue inspire millions, if this all could be performed by Nirvana, at the time of this concert possibly the greatest rock band in the world, as an acoustic set, then is it not fair to say that an acoustic set may indeed be good enough for the cover band playing in front of Say Cheez? And if so, could we not perhaps ask them to do their own rendition of this album, an MTV Unplugged in Princeton, as it were? All this to say (and not to switch up rock similes too quickly): Perhaps they can pull an inverse of Dylan, on that fateful day in Newport in 1965, and go acoustic instead of electric?

The thoughtful observation that "going acoustic" might be helpful if there wasn't an overarching issue at hand not being addressed ... that of bands playing in a residential neighborhood. I can see the need to drum up business by offering this enticement, especially in these difficult times. I'm guessing moving the bands away from the residences would defeat the purpose of having them there to draw business and entertain the shoppers. I had to buy noise canceling headphones so I could sacrifice my need for quiet to the greater good.

Not to belabor the point, but this does not seem like a "residential neighborhood." This is a mixed use section of the central business district, mostly commercial, some retail and dining, and some much appreciated residential, as well. The idea of an acoustic session is great -- perhaps we all can lobby the Thomas Sweet people, who I suspect manage the programming. Surely some band would want to be the next Nirvana, or the pre-Newport Bob Dylan.

Are you sure they were boomers? We certainly have our faults, but I expected more in the way of musical preference. For us, what else is there? BTW, I don't think that Dylan understood the full consequences of his decision at Newport '65. Or did he? I was there in '67, but he wasn't, so I never had the chance to ask.

Neither Nassau or Witherspoon Streets are ones that I would pick for quiet.