Wall of Sound retrospective

[Quasar1]

 

One of mankind's greatest achievements!!

https://kin.beehiiv.com/p/wall-sound-grateful-dead-changed-live-music

[lbpesq]

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

[Songdog]

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."

[Quasar1]

Thank you Bill and Songdog 

I knew there had to be a few errors that all of you fine gentleman would catch!