“There was one gig where Eric and I stopped playing for two choruses. Jack didn’t even know”: Cream were one of the loudest rock bands of their time – but the excessive volume tore the band apart

While never setting any ‘loudest concert’ world records, Cream were undoubtedly one of the most deafening rock bands of their day, awing onlookers with Marshall amp stacks at a time when the term ‘heavy metal’ meant, well, literal heavy metal.

During their incredibly brief run – barely two-and-a-half years, from 1966 to late 1968 – Cream essentially invented the concept of the rock power trio, while injecting an improvisational, free-form approach to blues standards that helped invent the ‘blues-rock’ genre as we know and understand it today.

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