Sounds like Extreme wanted to crank it up to 11.
The rock band, which was scheduled to play Fenway Park Thursday night, got into a squabble with police while performing at Indian Ranch in Webster earlier this month.
Officers nearly cut the Sept. 2 concert short after the Boston-formed band allegedly tried “to incite the crowd,” according to a police report. No charges were filed against the band members.
While working a security detail at the concert, Sergeant Robert Larochelle met with William Kokocinski, the security director at Indian Ranch, who told him that during sound check the band played at volume levels that approached 110 decibels. When he asked the band’s sound engineer to turn it down, he said it “doesn’t go any lower,” Larochelle wrote in the report.
Kokocinski then contacted the manufacturer of the equipment “who informed him that was simply not true,” and confronted the sound engineer “about his lie.” The sound engineer ultimately turned down the music to an acceptable volume, police said.
But after the concert began, police began receiving several noise complaints, including one “from a significant distance across the lake,” police said.
Police again went to speak to the band’s sound engineer, and words were exchanged. More than words, in fact.
“When he was informed to turn the amplifiers down he stated something to the effect of, ‘it doesn’t go any lower,’” Larochelle wrote in his report. “Based off his previous untruthfulness in the matter, I utilized some profanities to gain compliance and he turned the amplifiers off. During this interaction the sound engineer was extremely animated, frustrated and disrespectful, at one point grabbing my wrist in frustration.”
As the concert continued, Larochelle said he heard Extreme’s singer talking into the microphone, prompting the crowd to yell, boo, and swear.
“The volume was clearly back up as I could hardly make out what it was they were saying,” Larochelle wrote in his report. Other officers told him the band was “attempting to incite the crowd by complaining about the music getting turned down,” the report stated.
The band only had three songs left, and Larochelle decided “to not shut the concert down forcefully, based off the venue already being incited by the band and the obvious disadvantage 10 or so officers would have over an entire venue of people.”
The concert ended about 20 minutes later.
In a statement the next day, Indian Ranch, which has been hosting live outdoor entertainment since 1946, said “part of our entertainment license is to maintain certain decibel limits for all concerts. That restriction is clearly stated in every contract and agreed to by every band (including last night).”
“We asked the band’s sound engineer during sound check and the show to moderate the level because the volume significantly exceeded the limit,” the venue said. “We made another request during the show based on complaints that had come to the police, at which point the band’s sound engineer turned the system all the way down.”
Extreme’s manager, Robby Hoffman, declined to comment on the episode and said the band was focusing on their upcoming show at Fenway Park.
“There’s no story here so no comment,” Hoffman said in an e-mail to the Globe. “The real story is the band’s playing Fenway Park tonight with Aerosmith.”
Maybe Spinal Tap can make an appearance as well.
Emily Sweeney can be reached at emily.sweeney@globe.com. Follow her @emilysweeney and on Instagram @emilysweeney22.