Ah, the romance of it all... just the mention of those words 'The Isle of Wight Festival' conjures up images of flower children grinding their henna-painted hips to the sounds of Jimi Hendrix, The Who, Bob Dylan & The Band, Jefferson Airplane, Miles Davis, Joe Cocker, The Doors, ELP, Free, Jethro Tull and many more bands who became legends. Such as it was in 1968, '69 and '70 when literally hundreds of thousands of blissed-out hippies descended on the popular UK holiday resort, leaving a trail of chaos behind them.
The nostalgia isn't lost on me. I still have a clear image of my family's summer holiday on the island in 1970, surrounded by the great unwashed, and realising in later years how close I was to seeing Hendrix's last UK performance. Damn!
Sadly, the locals couldn't cope with the Hell's Angels, and the 1970 festival was to be the last. Until last year, that is. After a 32-year hiatus, the local council finally agreed to resurrect the festival at the new site of Seaclose Park in Newport, and the signs are that its back to stay. However, times have changed and, for better or worse, it's hardly the same gig.
Benefiting from perfect mid-June weather conditions, headliners for the 2003 edition were Paul Weller and Bryan Adams, closely followed on the bill by Starsailor, Counting Crows, Iggy Pop, John Squire, The Thrills, Cooper Temple Clause and the outrageous heavy metal troupe, The Darkness, amongst others. The intention of this line-up was clearly to achieve a mix of top names and new talent, as all good festivals should.
TP's main reason for attending IoW 2003 was to experience the latest line array product from Meyer Sound, the MILO system, which effectively fills the gap between the now-popular M3D and M2D cabinets as part of the M Series of loudspeakers. The system, which is distributed exclusively in the UK by Autograph Sales, was being given its first public UK showcase by the festival's sound provider, Canegreen.
With residents living close to the festival site it was essential to design the line array to project tightly and powerfully whilst minimising 'noise pollution' outside the festival arena. With this in mind, Canegreen's team used Meyer's online MAPP (Multi-purpose Acoustical Prediction Program) system to position the speakers to maximum effect.
A far cry from the 1.5kW WEM system and experimental parabolic dishes that Charlie Watkins installed in 1970, the PA incorporated both Canegreen's existing M3D line array units and the new MILO speakers, and delivered a tightly controlled sound envelope with excellent 'musical' clarity across all the styles on the line-up... with the arguable exception of Iggy Pop, whose band's insistence of winding up their backline to nightmarish levels presented the FOH crew with an impossible task!
Either side of the stage, the PA wings consisted of eight M3D speakers for far field projection, with eight MILOs hung below for the mid- and near-field. Sixteen Meyer 650-P sub-basses and six Meyer MSL-4 front-fill cabinets completed the line up to ensure good crowd coverage.
Meyer Sound first ventured into line array business in 2001 with the M3D system, an ideal concert touring product which was followed by the smaller M2D that is perfect for corporate and theatre applications. In terms of size, MILO falls neatly in between the two - the cabinet weighs 107 kilos compared to M3D's 188 kilos, making it a comfortable rigging job for a three-man team. MILO also happens to be the name of John and Helen Meyer's first grandson, which would suggest a massive vote of confidence in the product by the designer.
The system is benefiting from Meyer's new Californian manufacturing facility in which the firm develops and produces its own drivers. The company claims that the long-term consistency of its products is guaranteed by its purchase of a yard full of timber that will be used to make cones for the next 20 years!
This four-way system is compact and lightweight, has 100¡ horizontal coverage, and is self-powered by a 3.9kW four-channel HP4 integrated amplifier, producing a robust peak output of 140dB (at 1m). It offers an overall frequency range of 55Hz to 18kHz and extended high-frequency headroom, with three dedicated transducers for the high-frequency band (5kHz to 18kHz) - providing detailed resolution of transient information, even in long-throw applications.
Representing the product at the IoW was Mike Mann, the former freelance journalist who now works for Autograph Sales. He commented: "Because MILO is smaller and more lightweight than the previous line array products, it's suitable to rig in mid-sized theatres and for corporate presentations and shows, while still having enough power to handle an arena rock show. The M3D in this festival rig adds some low end but MILO could have done this gig on its own."
The FOH mixes were all piloted from a pair of 'flip-flopping' Yamaha PM4000 consoles, overseen by technicians Jerry Eade and Mick Williams. Canegreen's Special Projects Manager Pete Hughes commented: "This outdoor festival was a great opportunity to put the new MILO speakers through their paces, and we're pleased with how they've performed. We worked with Mike Mann to put the system together and the MILOs really ensure good projection of vocals and guitar from the bands."
Festival Production Manager, Mark Ward, added: "The sound for the festival has been fantastic and we're really pleased. The environmental health guys are also pleased, as there have been very few noise complaints, which means the Canegreen team got it tuned effectively. Thinking forward, we can use the same system with no problems to cover up to 25,000 people on-site still without delay towers."
The IoW experience and indeed another successful field trial with Michael McDonald at the Royal Albert Hall has encouraged Canegreen to confirm the purchase of 16 MILO cabinets, becoming the first rental company in Europe to commit to the new product.
And the visuals...
Lighting was supplied by LSD Fourth Phase (with LD Vince Foster showing up again!) and the stage was shipped in from StageCo in Belgium. The festival's video package was supplied via Blink TV to the promoter, Solo. Live direction was by live music video pioneer Nick Fry, and the event was project managed by XL Video director Des Fallon.
Between John Giddings of Solo, event production manger Mark Ward, Fallon and David Llewellyn from Blink, it was decided how the live video I-Mag for each band would fuse with Blink TV's downtime inserts to provide a carefully constructed media 'stream'.
XL Video's OB unit was also in action, engineered by Richard Burford, who also oversaw the soundtrack replay from a dedicated hard drive in the truck. Fry directed and mixed all the live video footage from here.
Head Camera operator was Larne Poland, operating one of four manned cameras - two on track and dolly in the pit, one on-stage and one at FOH. XL used four of its new Sony E10 digital broadcast cameras for the first time at an event, which was shot in 16:9 format. Fallon described the quality of these as "stunning and very user friendly".
This year's event in Newport pointed the way towards a bright future for the festival. However, my understaffed hotel served as evidence that the organisers need to prepare local business for the additional trade coming their way! Shades of 1970 perhaps?
Photography by Louise Stickland,
Mike Mann, Mark Cunningham & Kellie Hasbury.