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he Beatles are held in great affection by most
Brits, and there was a wailing and a gnashing
of teeth when the news broke that Abbey
Road Studios, where the Fab Four recorded most
of their records, had been put up for sale by its
owner, EMI. Except it wasn’t. It almost had been,
Evans led a campaign to save the studios for the
nation and Andrew Lloyd Webber showed interest
people have heard of was to be sold broke in the
Financial Times on February 15, 2010. The paper
is respected and usually well informed, but much
of the piece headlined “EMI’s long and winding
road leads to Abbey Road sale sign” read like a
press release.
Soon the news was all over the media.
Chris Evans picked up the story the following day
on his breakfast show and ran with it, devoting,
with a few exceptions, his Friday programme to
whatsupuk@audiomedia.com
what’s up
UK
Festival Sound
KEVIN HILTON looks at the ways in which sound is monitored at festivals today, a long cry
from a suited man with a monitoring device wandering the muddy fields.
Goodbye, Abbey Road?
KEVIN HILTON ponders the role the studios have played in our musical and cultural heritage.
it. against raised quickly were petitions sale, for up was Studios Road Abbey announced was it When
Twenty years ago a musicloving
friend of mine
remarked that he couldn’t
understand why anyone ever
considered holding open-air
festivals in the UK because, in his
words, “the weather’s not built
for it”. This strangely conceived
statement was all the stranger
because we were at the 1991
Cambridge Folk Festival, baked
by the late summer sun.
Other events held that year
were less fortunate. The muchpublicised
performance by
Luciano Pavarotti in Hyde Park
was staged only two days after
Cambridge but was plagued by
driving rain. The expectation
would be that opera fans – or at
least the middle-class people who
liked Nessun Dorma – would be
better behaved than rock fans.
But even there, there were those
at the back of the crowd, who
started throwing drink cans at
the people who put up umbrellas.
Still, that’s how festivals have
been since the early days. In 1962
trombonist and bandleader Chris
Barber observed, “Jazz festivals
are the biggest gamble I know…
they may be washed out by the
rain or invaded by trouble makers
more interested in rough-house
than rhythm. I love jazz festivals.”
I Predict A Riot…
Controlling the crowd and
guaranteeing their safety at
these events was at one time
almost as difficult as predicting
the weather. At the 1968 National
Jazz and Blues Festival (before
it became the Reading Rock
Festival) 74 people were injured
when the roof of the stage
collapsed during a performance
by the Crazy World of
Arthur Brown.
More tragically two young
fans were killed in a crush
during a performance by Guns
’n’ Roses at the 1988 Monsters
of Rock Festival at Castle
Donnington (now succeeded
by the Download Festival).
This highlighted the baffling fact
that there was no single set of
standards for staging, running,
was bought by equity investor Terra Firma.
for DVD authoring and the studios have been used
launched
was division interactive an mastering; and
of branded merchandising based around the
range a announced EMI Heritage, English by
bearing the Abbey Road name, slogans such as
party. Roger Bowdler, Head of Designation at
Radio 4’s PM programme on Tuesday, February 23,
some minds” and resulted in the pending listing
prohibit a change of use for the building there
doesn’t
this while that added She protection”.
was laid down at Olympic Studios, EMI’s other
album
first groundbreaking Zeppelin’s Led But
Some good has come out of this saga –
2009.
February in closed was it
and policing/marshalling big
outdoor music events.
In the 1980s and early ‘90s
many sound hire companies
based in London relied on
the outdated Pop Code.
This had been drawn up in 1976
by the Greater London Council
(GLC), which itself was part
of history by the ‘90s, having
been abolished in 1986 by the
Thatcher government. Many in
the live sound and staging sector
worked with local authorities and
the Health and Safety Executive
(HSE) to create a successor to
the Pop Code. This eventually
appeared in 1993 as the Guide
to Health, Safety, and Welfare at
Pop Concerts and Other Outdoor
Events. The document was
revised in 1999, and last year the
HSE announced that a further
revision was planned, although
no date has been set.
The Guide to Health, Safety,
and Welfare at Pop Concerts, etc,
primarily covers the organisation
and running of events, but also
includes the contentious area
of sound levels. This is now
further covered by the Control
of Noise at Work Regulations,
which came into force for Great
Britain on April 6, 2006. These
are designed to protect those
working in any environment
where there are high levels of
noise. Entertainment also comes
under these rulings to safeguard
those working in clubs and at
concert venues.
Monitoring Men
Even before 1993 those in the live
sound business in the UK noticed
that the Environmental Health
officers of local councils were
getting stricter in dealing with
sound levels. These officials were
not difficult to spot at festivals;
they were usually wearing
suits and carrying an obvious
measuring device.
Mark Murphy, an Associate
Director at Vanguardia
Consulting, says the situation is
now very different: “Now we have
to do a lot of sound modelling
beforehand to look at how the
Heritage awarded the
English
when 22, February
property of architectural
a
preserve to granted
case Abbey Road has been
this in but importance,
artists for generations
recording
that ensure
make and record music in
That seemed to be it.
by”. gone years of icons
chronology of events
the
examining But
media roller coaster
this
during and before
Cynical observers of
questions.
more raises
convinced that Abbey
are
business music the
Studios 2 and 3.
the market unofficially for
Like other big record
offer.
right the was
companies EMI has
the late 1990s, hit hard
same time. ∫
The same day that Abbey Road was listed
A spokeswoman for English Heritage told
EMI was thrown a lifeline in 2007 when it
In July last year an Abbey Road branded online
The most puzzling thing in all this is that Listed
Abbey Road’s importance in the history of
UK has been secured – but some suspect that
the future of an important artistic resource in the
studio asset. I didn’t hear Chris Evans shout when
a lot of very murky things have gone on at the
and artists going out on their own.
continue to own the studios.
and distribution service.
recording console.
being confirmed.
use for it,” she said.
though the studios had been losing money for
have expanded over the years beyond recording
the preservation of Abbey Road a priority”, even
“made
owner new the says EMI statement its In
several years. In the middle of 2009, EMI received
mastering service was launched, giving artists the
the studios’ engineers. Abbey Road’s operations
There is also Abbey Road Live, a location recording
This includes t-shirts, laptop cases, and notebooks
commodity.
a of more even them making studios,
‘Eight Track Mind’ and images of the TG12345 MkII
English Heritage, admitted in an interview on
that talk of the studios being sold “concentrated
me that Listed Status provided “an extra layer of
“But it would probably be difficult to find another
application.
an of scrutiny” more “lot a be would
Beatles it would be a shrine because Sir Edward
The
without Even unquestionable. is recording
recorded Land of Hope and Glory in its Studio 1,
Orchestra
Symphony London the and Elgar
and Pink Floyd created Dark Side of the Moon in
chance for their recordings to be mastered by
This was rejected because EMI believed it should
Road.
Abbey buy to million GB£30 over of offer an
for the Channel 4 TV series Live from Abbey Road.
Status was applied for in 2002 by an unnamed
coverage and sound work in an
arena or festival site. There are
factors like how much breakout
there will be from the sound
system, so we work with the
audio companies to come up with
a design that optimises the site.”
Vanguardia specialises in
sound, noise, acoustics, and
audio-visual design. It has
worked on many of the leading
UK festivals, including Hyde
Park Calling, Wireless, Reading,
Creamfield, Download, and the
Isle of Wight.
Murphy comments that the
planning for big live events has
changed dramatically because
the software packages being
used today were not available
even ten years ago. These include
the EASE program, which, like
others produced by loudspeaker
manufacturers including Nexo,
d&b, and L Acoustics, enable
a 3D model of a festival site to
be created. This is then used to
predict how sound will behave in
the space at certain levels.
This is particularly crucial
with the new breed of urban
events, including V, the Clapham
Weekender, T in the Park, and
Wireless, which are held in the
middle of cities or towns.
Britannia Row Productions
works on the Wireless Festival.
Company Director Mike Lowe
says that like most promoters
today, Live Nation, which runs
Wireless, hires its own acoustical
consultants to measure sound
levels and works alongside
Brit Row engineers and
environmental health officers.
He comments that the engineers
share the available information,
enabling them to control the
volume effectively.
All this a world away from the
1976 Reading Festival when 36
local residents complained about
the noise produced by AC/DC,
The Enid, Ted Nugent, Manfred
Mann’s Earth Band, and Osibisa.
They must have really been
belting it out as, if memory serves,
the old Riverside site where the
Festival took place wasn’t that
close to any houses. ∫
recordings made at the studios.
But this overlooks the fact that there are few
it. within on goes what than more worth are
The future of Abbey Road Studios was further
parties.”
third appropriate and interested with
cemented on Monday,
to come can continue to
the same rooms as musical
and other activity just
revolution and the rise of
status. This is usually
Listed II Grade building
cultural interest and to
“outstanding
its for listed
Road Studios had been on
years; all that was needed
been struggling since
by the downloading
lean independent labels
Abbey Road, NW8, would be turned into luxury
property, or often just the land on which it stands,
studio and laptop technology, mainstream
the project
of rise the Despite sessions. recording
speculation EMI confirms it is holding preliminary
press
recent to response “In 21: February Sunday,
on recordings, making for an ongoing demand
The immediate fear was that the building at 3
these days the actual bricks and mortar of a
understandable;
was That offices. or apartments
studios left in the UK big enough for orchestral
artists and producers still want strings and brass
Through all of this EMI maintained a non-
labels.
classical of needs the outside
committal stance. A statement finally came on
discussions for the revitalisation of Abbey Road
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T
but not at the time BBC Radio 2 presenter Chris
The story that the only recording studio most
it. buying in
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AUDIO MEDIA MARCH 2010
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