I had a visceral, cringing reaction to this. Ugghhhhh. Worse than Harps! It blows my mind that people like Mozart needed to bring their own keyboard places for performances - gotta hire a few dudes, have them negotiate it down some stairwells and carry it out through an Austrian winter evening so you can go play at some rich schmuck's party. On the plus side at least the legs were a separate feature and you could just follow behind the harpsichord dudes, carrying your fold-up fortepiano legs. And your music. And also probably everyone elses' music because you just finished writing the piece.Taking one on tour was like taking a harpsichord on tour
We had a day at the club once where we had World Party (and two openers) in the afternoon and Fish (from Marillion - with two openers) in the evening. World Party insisted on an 8' grand. For one song. So we had to get that fucker up on stage, tuned, and mic'd for one fucking song, then get it down and out the door before we could load in a fuckin' 28-input band. And two openers. In the world, there are dilettantes. It was super-gratifying to see that half-empty room and it's never gratifying to see a half-empty room.