Having been a stagehand for the better part of the last 25 years, I can say that yes there are alot of arena bands that have or still do stack up walls of dummy cabinets for the look while only actually using a couple to play through. After all it's only Rock and Roll. There are probably some that use a combination of traditional amp and MFX direct. There are numerous players that only use MFX direct. There are numerouse acts that isolate their cabinet offstage in a road case and mic it. If it can be thought of, it has probably been done by somebody. Alot of shows I've seen it has amazed me as 2/3rds of the show can actually be going on under the stage and I'm not just reffering to the green room.
A lot of the backline might also be spares, or ones that have already been spared. After all, playing at volumes night after night, you'd expect one or two to blow a cone or something.
I remember reading an article back in the 70's about kiss doing that before they got ' found \" Packing the stage with empty cabs just for the visual! So it's been going on for a long time! LoL
I was watching some film of BLS and was wondering if Zak Wyld was actually using all 20 cabs ... for a 3k venue!! LoL
When I saw VH in 82 they had dummy cabs behind Eddie that were mounted to the floor I guess on springs...He would take a running start while soloing and jump up and almost kick them over, each time a little higher untill you were sure they were gonna fall over... it was great!
In 84 they had a canvas backdrop with painted on the fake cabs up to the roof making it look like a \"moutain o cabs\"... No way anyone beilieved those were real it was just for Kewlness sake...Man I love rock and roll!
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I was watching some film of BLS and was wondering if Zak Wyld was actually using all 20 cabs ... for a 3k venue!! LoL
When I saw VH in 82 they had dummy cabs behind Eddie that were mounted to the floor I guess on springs...He would take a running start while soloing and jump up and almost kick them over, each time a little higher untill you were sure they were gonna fall over... it was great!
In 84 they had a canvas backdrop with painted on the fake cabs up to the roof making it look like a \"moutain o cabs\"... No way anyone beilieved those were real it was just for Kewlness sake...Man I love rock and roll!