And in the day….

A song a day · 

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Jonathan Wolff6h

My friend’s mom saw them in 1965 at Chicago’s Comisky Park. Her recollections are she thought she was going to get trampled to death, and she couldn’t hear the band at all.

Jon Haddock

Former Police Officer at Hampshire Constabulary (1980–1982)10mo

One thing I noticed about The Beatles is that they were the first band that always played loud. It was something about the sound. They were the first ones where volume was an important part of the overall sound, am I correct?

Hardly.

In 1965 they played Shea Stadium. here’s a picture of that gig…

That little platform has the Beatles, the drum kit and all their amps on it

An unamplified drum kit, three 100 watt Vox amps, one with a pair of 15″ speakers for Paul’s bass and two with four 12″ speakers in cabinets along with a 50 watt Vox. Vocals were covered by a number of EVLR4A speakers on sticks, each containing a stack of elliptical drivers.

In this pic you can see the EV P.A speakers (those little white stick things) arranged in a square around the band’s riser… Noise cancellation and delay abound!

In other words, about the same as a typical modern small pub band playing to 50 people.except the pub band will have a minimum of 250 watts of PA even if they are using a little combined desk/amp just for vocals.

The Beatles ran their amps as loud as they could go. Not because that was a tonal preference, but because they didn’t have enough amplification to be heard!

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