Good points about the house P.A's Tim..
Back in the mid to late 60's when Cream were playing, Solid State PA amps
were rare, not very high power, not very reliable and did not sound very
good so most bands, like Cream, played straight through multiple stacks of
100W tube amps, like Marshalls, and 4X12 speaker cabinets...
Here is an excerpt from the Tonequest Clapton Special issue Spt. 2001 on
their amps...
"Bruce and Clapton acquired 100W Marshall Plexi stacks in 1966 as Cream
rehearsals began. Intially, each of them were playing through dual 4X12
cabinets but two additional cabinets would be added to their rigs around
1967. The additional cabinets would be used or left idle on stage
depending on the size of the venue. Clapton stepped up to two Marshall
1959 100W Plexi Superlead amps in 1967, while Bruce acquired a custom 200W
Marshall Major. For the Albert Hall farewell concert, Bruce used a 100W
Plexi Marshall and Clapton used an 8 knob1959T Mashall Superlead"
Later in the article Tim Dowd, then an engineer at Atlantic records,
recollects getting a call from Ahmet Ertegun to come down and record
Cream's Disraeli gears album. He did not know Cream and when he got to the
studio roadies were setting up multiple Marshall stacks. When the group
arrived he was amazed that all the gear was for just three musicians. The
room they were recording in was rather large, 35'X45", and he was so
worried about the drummers, Ginger Baker, hearing he put two of the
Marshall stacks all the way down the opposite dead end of the room away
from Baker. He commented that it was so loud in the studio he would put on
a pair of headphones to protect his hearing when he went in during a take.
So those guys just loved to play loud............
Her is a great site of Cream pictures where you can see Jack's and Eric's
multiple Marshall stacks.....some pretty small rooms and they each have
two 100W Marshall stacks each!!!
http://www.angelfire.com/ca/oldtimers/TourPics.html
I had the chance to play through a friends 100W Marshall stack one day
back in the 70's and the volume was staggering with the amp volume dimed
and that was only a single 100W head and 2- 4X12 cabinets so I can't
imagine how loud it must be standing in front of multiple 100W Marshall
stacks!!
The thing about the old Marshall's were you had to play them turned all
the way up "dimed' before you got the desired distortion and sustain. Back
then they did not have the overdrive pedals or attenuators we have today
which lets a player overdrive the preamp to get the same desired tone at
much lower volume so they always had the amps at max volume..........It is
no wonder many of 60's/70's rockers have hearing problems............