Alembic Guitars Club
Connecting => Miscellaneous => Topic started by: Quasar1 on November 25, 2025, 04:26:54 PM
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8) 8) 8)
One of mankind's greatest achievements!!
https://kin.beehiiv.com/p/wall-sound-grateful-dead-changed-live-music
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Nice read, thanks for posting, though there are a few errors. The Wall wasn’t 100 feet high, and 100 feet is a LOT more than three stories. The tallest column of speakers was 32 feet. (It was for Phil’s E string and was able to produce the full low E wave crest to crest.) And the story left out the 3-night stand, February 22-24, at Winterland where the Wall performed wonderfully. Also, the official unveiling, the “Sound Test” on March 23,1974, was at the Cow Palace, not at “tspeaker feedbackly”.
Bill, tgo
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Thanks for posting this!
It's a good overview for someone totally unaware of how the Grateful Dead and Bear changed the world of concert sound.
It's marred by a few unfortunate turns of phrase (no, it wasn't "a literal wall of sound between the band and the audience", it was conceived as a way to bring the band and the audience closer together) and one glaring inaccuracy (as just pointed out, it was not "100 feet high", although "nearly three stories" is a good approximation of the height). Some mention of the line array concept pioneered in the Wall would have been appropriate.
A close musical friend of mine was at one of those Winterland shows - he said the sound wasn't exactly loud but "you could lean up against it."
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Thank you Bill and Songdog :D
I knew there had to be a few errors that all of you fine gentleman would catch! 8)