Forum
The Cannon and the hells bell
which cannons are real at the concerts,for the real ones in the 80's they were so loud that the whole building shook are the ones on this tour real and are they used by gunpowder or just loud fireworks in them ? The bell- how many different bells have they used i have noticed that the one from the BIB tour to the Razors edge it is the bell from the song what is the one on this tour ?
for the cannons: i dont know. for the bell: its like the same as on the stiff upper lip tour
All the cannons are fake. During the show I went too, I saw roadies on the side stage assembling them a few songs before FTATR. And I think they are fireworks cuz gunpowder would get on the people in the crowd and on the band making a very hazardous area for everyone involved. the bell- they've used at least one other from the original recording cuz, in maximum rock n roll, angus was almost crushed by the bell so they replaced it with a lighter bell.
I don't know how many different bells they've used, but one thing I do know is that the current one is a fake. Back in the early days, Brian Johnson would actually ring a bell, as illustrated in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7edbc7onXQo, but now it just seems to be a recording.
I have always thought that there was only ever one bell cast, at the foundry in Loughborough, and this is the one used on all tours. http://www.crabsodyinblue.com/acdchellsbell.htm A Classic Album Under Review - Back In Black (DVD) gives a good interview with Tony Platt describing how the bell chimes were recorded for Hells Bells on the Back in Black album.
As far as the Bell goes, they have a few different versions. But to my knowledge they've gotten lighter over the years because the first bell that they had was too heavy for a lot of the venues that they played in to support it. For example, the one used on the Stiff Upper lip tour compared to the one used on the Back In Black tour seems to be a bit larger. For the cannons, Angus said that the very first version that they had did actually blow sparks and they had to get rid of them because some of the roadies and the band members got little burns. So they changed them. As far as I know, their fake and it's gun powder because Angus talked about how they had to get a gun powder license in order to deploy them. They are very powerful though, Phil Rudd's old drum tech Dickie had his ear drums blown out lots by them and they even blew a huge hole in the wall of one of the venue's the boy's played at.