From Is Phoenix Burning by Bruce Sterling
Fourteen hundred people is not a huge crowd for an SRL gig, but it fills the Phoenix venue. Pauline, quoted in The Arizona Republic, said, "SRL is on a public service mission to spread San Francisco's careless attitude toward life, liberty, and the pursuit of intensity across America." Ironically, Mark Pauline has been all but banished from San Francisco, where recent legal wrangles prevent him and his mighty robots from performing in their home town without purchasing the required and exorbitantly expensive fire permits, which Pauline says "won't happen." Earplugs are distributed, which help, a bit, with the "music." Mark usually plays at least an hour of impossibly inane or relentlessly irritating soundtrack to work the crowd into a properly destructive mood. Shortly after the midnight sirens go off and the fun starts.