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I maintain, that Ringo played harder than any metal drummer.

Live bands have monitors, which are basically amplifiers facing the band. That way, they can hear themselves (they can’t hear the sound from the amps and PA system). They’re usually up front, on the stage floor, tiled at a 45-degree angle.

But the Beatles never had monitors. Thus playing live was difficult. Making matters worse for them, they had a zillion screaming girls in the audience.

The ONLY way the Beatles could have played a gig without it being a train wreck, was if Ringo beat the s**t out of the drums and cymbals, to cut through the din and give the others something to latch onto.

Yes, Lars, and Charlie bang away for Metallica and Anthrax. But take away their monitors and amps, put them in front of a zillion screamers, and I bet Ringo]still wins the day.

His playing is fairly interesting at times, and he’s certainly more notable than Charlie Watts or anyone in AC/DC, or anyone else in my list. And yes, the Beatles were about the SONGWRITING - they weren’t about instrumental mastery. They didn’t need Moon or Bonham or Mitch or Ginger. In fact, put any of those wild men in Pink Floyd and visa versa, and it wouldn’t work. Nick was perfect for Pink Floyd - and he’s got a better car collection than me, so what do I know.

Ringo has his place, and if I was called Ringo I wouldn’t consider it being slagged off. But I stand by pedestrian.

Now show a still photo from the Cream Albert Hall show and look at Ginger Baker’s setup— most did not know that Baker became deaf— so the bass reflex LOUD signal was sent over a heavy duty 18 inch woofer as well as a equalized signal which vibrated the entire drum “box” and through his chair. He played from the sensation of the sound of Jack Bruce’s bass and also Clapton’s bottom end frequencies. Pretty clever. So was the use by Clapton many years ago on up to 2005 of running his guitar through a Leslie organ cabinet (with spinning speakers)- which can now be created in a electric signal stomp box (but Clapton had to wait until the full house signal came down enough on sustain to stomp the actuation button for the Leslie (and uh, not blow most of the house system). So have learned from major sound people in nashville (old timers).

Here is a video that shows both Ginger and the Leslie effect in one video “Badge” (the miswritten title from studio notes- Bridge looked like “Badge” who knew?):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPDZ2M51XDw