Title: I Need Tunes Early Source:
[None] URL Source:[None] Published:Jan 27, 2012 Author:bs Post Date:2012-01-27 23:25:15 by Lod Keywords:None Views:1886 Comments:47
I was listening to an Iron Butterfly song on youtube and someone posted this:
these look like nice young boys, i trust they never used illegal drugs.
Thought I would fall out of my chair.
Iron Butterfly at the old Va Beach Coliseum (which has been demolished) was the only show I ever walked out of.
My long haired, teen aged drummer-brother and me both agreed that Pinera & Rhino were killing us with their trebly, screaming dual leads from their Marshal stacks. The place wasn't big enough or they played too loud, depending on who you'd choose to fault.
We knew at that time that Clapton had gone deaf for a while from touring with Cream, and Clapton times two was 2 much!
My ears rang for hours after leaving that damned show.
LOL! Reckon their amps were too good for the venue they were playing?
They were using several 100 watt Marshals each in a room that was perhaps 1/20th the size of the large venues of today. And both Pinera & Rhino had brittle, ear piercing settings that were just awful.
There was no such thing as the CA-Eddie Van Halen "brown sound" back then.
I also saw Johnny Winter there with Humble Pie (when Frampton was with them) and Humble Pie used Marshals that were better adjusted for the venue, while Johnny Winter and Rick Derringer used 6 Fender Twin Reverbs each and they couldn't be heard (with any definition of individual notes) in the back at all.
That could be why they eventually demolished the old convention center. It was too small for the big shows and too big for the acts equipped for blues venues.
If you check out the gigs for Coco Montoya (blues man extraordinaire) you'll see that he plays medium sized clubs on his tours despite his popularity in the blues niche market. Blues artists just don't sell out 20,000 seat venues. And Johnny Winter with Rick derringer in the co-pilot seat was considered a blues act in Va Beach. (and a gay icon along with his brother Edgar in NYC, I later learned)
It sounds like they were set up to play somewhere like Red Rocks (in Colorado) or some other big outdoor venue like Woodstock. I don't know why anyone thinks it is necessary to just blast people to death in a little auditorium/convention center. Their music is good played loud but then there is loud and then there is LOUD and too damned loud--I reckon you know what I mean.