The Who 1971 Rainbow Theatre, London, England Concert Poster. ...

Description

The Who 1971 Rainbow Theatre, London, England Concert Poster. An original paper concert poster advertising The Who, touring off of their classic album Who's Next, performing in Finsbury Park, North London on Thursday thru Saturday evenings, November 4-6, 1971. The Who were given the honors of breaking in the Rainbow, which had previously been the old Astoria Cinema. To mark the occasion, Pete Townshend wore a jumpsuit made from silver lame material, with the red Rainbow logo emblazoned across the back. This first-ever Heritage offering measures a shade under 20" x 30" and grades to Near Mint condition. From the David Swartz Concert Poster Collection. COA from Heritage Auctions.

More Information: The Rainbow Theatre had been re-opened by American John Morris - of Woodstock fame - and all 9,000 seats for the three shows had sold out at rate of 1,000 seats an hour! (The Rainbow held 3,000.) That's not surprising in light of the massive critical and commercial success of Who's Next. And many consider this to have been the absolute career peak of live performances by the all-original line-up of Pete Townshend, Roger Daltrey, John Entwistle and Keith Moon.

Since the 1969 release of the Tommy album, the band had been playing both larger and outdoor venues such as the Isle of Wight. However, their WEM PA system just couldn't handle the amplification necessary to bring the Who's sound to life, especially with a full-on rock album like Who's Next. Soundman/super roadie and unofficial 5th member of the band Bob Pridden starting working with Bob Heil of Heil Sound, and on August 7th they debuted a new state-of-the-art sound system at the Boston Music Hall.

According to Mr. Pridden, "During the band's 1971 US tour, the Who started playing through a mammoth new PA system built by Sunn and US gear guru Bob Heil. And Mr. Heil chips in, "Bob Heil and Sunn built that together and especially for us. That happened just by Bob Heil being introduced to me by someone, and then we all got together and they built a JBL system, but it was all enclosed in Sunn cabinets. It had two-way crossovers and horns with 2440 drivers - probably four horns a side and eight bass bins a side - and 15-inch loaded cabinets. What I hadn't liked about the JBL Altec system was that the sound was very harsh, but this one was really great.

"The first time we used that system in America, it was sensational! It was really the first time people had heard decent stuff with horns! We brought it back to England with us and we played the Oval cricket ground in South London on (Sept 18, 1971) other acts included the Faces and Mott The Hoople and used it there. Of course, everyone else used another system but, when it was our turn, we switched ours on and it was just unbelievable! Later on, they came out with a Sunn mixer, which took the place of the old WEM Audiomaster. I can't remember how many channels they had but we had two of them and we had sends for the echo and we used to mix the monitors from there as well."

The massive system consisted of: 32 front-loaded bass cabinets each with one JBL 2205 15" speaker, 32 radial horns with 2482 drivers, 6 radial horns with 2420 super high-compression drivers,
4 mid- to high-frequency long-throw horns with JBL 2440 drivers, 32 JBL 2405 high-frequency tweeters. & 12 Crown DC-300A 300-watt power amps.

The Who continued to work with Bob Heil until 1975 when he retired from the PA rental business to focus on manufacturing.

Is there any wonder that The Who were named the loudest band in world in the 1976 Guinness Book of World Records?


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