The number of posts I’ve penned on this site isn’t large, but I’m more concerned about ratio than quantity. Most of my old posts are a bit negative and cynical, and I want to even out the vibe of this blog a little — I don’t want to exclusively be a den of sorrow. Today I thought I would write about something I enjoy in contrast to the more bitter tone of most of my previous posts.
I like rock music, especially old rock music. My favorite rock band is Cream. They only lasted 2 years (1966-1968), but they did more in those two years than most bands do in their entire lifetimes.
Ignore the hair and outfits if you can — mere products of their time. What I’m more interested in are those four huge amplifier stacks behind the musicians (there are even more hidden behind the curtain on the right).
Imagine playing through those things. Furthermore, imagine being Ginger Baker and having to compete with 32 twelve-inch speakers using only an unmiked acoustic drum kit, a situation which was the norm in those days.
I’ve asked several old dudes on a Cream fan page what the volume was like in person, and their reports came in a wide range.
Some said:
“The volume was devastatingly loud in that tiny room; they really had no business using those monster amps for anything besides huge outdoor arenas. My ears were ringing for days afterward. It’s a good thing we have much better and less volume-intensive live shows nowadays, all clean and balanced through a PA system. Much more enjoyable.”
While others said:
“Yeah, I sat right in front of Eric’s amps for the whole show. Wasn’t loud enough for me! His playing that night was a revelation, and I went home and vowed to practice every day! It’s a shame our modern live shows are all clean and balanced through a PA system. It just kills the atmosphere, man.”
The “clean and balanced through a PA system” part is key. Nowadays people will usually have one or several smaller amplifiers that are miked and routed into a mixing board which is also receiving input from every other instrument and voice on stage. This “mix” is then balanced and broadcast to the audience through a PA system, albeit one much more powerful and efficient than the one seen hanging from the ceiling in the above photo. In the mid-late 60s, PA systems were much weaker and much less common; Cream would often play gigs where there wasn’t any at all. Naturally, they relied on their huge amps to deliver sound to the audience (except for poor Ginger, who had to rely on pure muscle power for his drums).
I don’t think it’s fair to compare audience recordings of old shows to in-person experiences at modern concerts, but I do think it’s fair to compare audience recordings of old shows to audience recordings of modern concerts. Everything sounds different when recorded regardless of how much the party doing the recording doesn’t want it to. I’ve listened to many of both categories.
Thing is, the shows for which these amps were used sound much, much cooler (to my ears) than ones that opted for less abrasive and less noisy methods. You could come up with a million theories to explain why this is, but at the end of the day it’s probably just my own tastes combined with the mystique of an age I never experienced. I just think a pair of dimed stacks is the coolest way to play a rock show. I hope I’ll get to play through one at some point in my life.
Lastly, I think newer bands could benefit from a stripped-down live setup — simplicity and spontaneity go hand-in-hand. Older bands took risks when they played live; songs often sounded completely different each time. They didn’t try to simply imitate the studio recording, they took it somewhere beyond, into the stratosphere. We could use some of that today.
Wight of Leeds 
amazing work
LikeLike