Clapton and Winwood at Madison Square Garden - The first time I saw them there together was in what was considered to be the first Super Group - Blind Faith. On drums was Ginger Baker from Cream, where Eric came from. At the time he was one of the best rock drummers in the world. Winwood was from Traffic and The Spencer Davis Group. On bass was Rick Grech. He was from the British group The Family. They were one of my favorites, that not many people knew about. They were not commercial, and if anything, downright freaky and scary in concert. The lead singer was spastic and violent, but they were good musicians. And if you can find their records, listen to the great stereo mixes. This was a time of peace and love and all that mellow hippie crap, and these guys were on speed or something, and scared the shit out of audiences.
But my point here is the show at the Garden. The band was on a rotating stage in the center of the Garden floor that turned slowly as they played. This was before huge stationary PA systems, so when the band was facing away from you, you couldn't hear squat ! Their PA was on the stage with them, playing to whatever direction they were facing. It was cool as a musician to see the back of Ginger's drum set and watch him play, but you couldn't hear anything when they faced away from you. Today's i-pods are louder than what we heard.
Years latter we saw Yes in the Garden on a rotating stage, but by now bands figured out how to arrange their PA systems so the sound was covering the whole arena. It's come a long way from the Beatles playing Shea to Pink Floyd in surround sound.
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