WOMAD

Arguably one of most genuinely eclectic of the gigantic range of summer festivals now available for al fresco music lovers to choose from, WOMAD marked its 25th year by moving from the Reading site it had occupied since 1990 to a brand new ‘virgin’ location at Charlton Park in Malmesbury, Wiltshire.

Thanks to the record-breaking wet weather that preceded it, the festival — held on July 27-29 — earned a fortune for Wellington boot manufacturers, with many visitors dubbing the event WO-MUD! In fact, the mud was so dense that two of the 10 performance areas were closed due to lack of production access.

As an organisation, WOMAD works in many different ways, not only at its festivals, but also through record releases and educational projects, with them all creating an awareness of the potential of a multi-cultural society. Weather aside, WOMAD Charlton Park was every bit the celebration that has typified the festival since it was born in 1982, and to mark the anniversary, original pioneer Peter Gabriel returned to deliver a stunning headlining performance.

Amongst the wide variety of other artists were Taj Mahal, Martin & Eliza Carthy, Billy Bragg, Benjamin Zephaniah, Sheila Chandra, Guo Yue, Toots & The Maytals, Trilok Gurtu, Baaba Maal, Steel Pulse, Kronos Quartet, Asian Dub Foundation, Ben Taylor (sounding uncannily like his father, James), Candi Staton, Seth Lakeman and a very moody Isaac Hayes... and they were just the ones we'd heard of.

While Simon Emmerson’s live show ‘The Imagined Village’ blended the experimental with the conventional, a great Malian newcomer was discovered in Bassekou Kouyate whose extraordinary n'goni playing (an ancient form of lute) echoed everything from blues to jazz improvisation.

Augmenting this already impressive line-up were many others representing numerous countries and cultures, as was evident backstage where one literally rubbed shoulders with grass-skirted Maoris, Chinese, Koreans, Indian mystics and African drummers.

As well as the wealth of live music, WOMAD is known for its ‘global village’ of fascinating stalls, film screenings, spiritual pursuits and workshops — ranging this year from drumming sessions with the legendary Billy Cobham and circus skills showcases, to ‘Taste The World’ cookery tips from the versatile Chinese flautist Guo Yue. Audiences are always encouraged to participate as well as watch and appreciate the action.

PRODUCTION
None of this, explained WOMAD’s co-founder Thomas Brooman, would be possible without the “community of energy” generated by the support of the event’s long-serving production team — among them, the Stage Miracles crew and Ampco Pro Rent.

In the early ’90s, WOMAD turned to Dutch company Ampco Pro Rent (APR) to provide audio services and the relationship continues to thrive. Dieter van Denzel has worked as APR’s production manager for many of the festivals to date and is proud of the quality delivered by the Synco PA systems that have been at the heart of APR’s inventory since it became the pioneer member of the Synco Network a decade ago.

Van Denzel, who was managing a site-wide APR crew of 26, took us on a muddy tour of the stages. “The main stage has a Synco Martin W8L line array which is XTA-controlled and Martin-powered, and sounds very natural. We chose this route to help minimise environmental noise issues on this new site where the local villages are quite close.

“There’s a new method we’ve employed where we angle the subs in a particular direction to direct low-end energy precisely where we want it, and reduce spillage. It worked perfectly for Peter Gabriel because although it was a powerful sound, we were able to operate within the license boundaries. We’re from Holland where there’s a very dense population, so we’re quite used to dealing with this problem!”

The same theory was applied with similar equipment at the Saddlespan stage, while in the Siam Tent and Big Red (dance) Tent, APR used its co-entrant Renkus-Heinz Synco Touring System loudspeakers.

“The Big Red Tent was the one we were most worried about in terms of overflow, but we handled it well,” said van Denzel. “I’ve noticed that the RH-STS system has become popular once again, especially with people who are fed up with line arrays! It’s a very good system and easy to stack.

“On the outdoor BBC Radio 3 stage we have the smallest of three versions of the line array [the W8LM Mini] with WMX subs which, as elsewhere in open-air locations here, are focused on just the necessary distance to avoid spilling into other performance areas.”

APR also supplied a number of smaller systems for areas such as workshops and the backstage bar. The desks around the site were mostly Midas Heritages at FOH and XL3s on monitors. Van Denzel: “Most of the engineers we deal with still prefer analogue, despite what some people claim!

“However, due to little or no soundcheck availablity, a few artists like Peter Gabriel have played safe and brought their own digital consoles [Digidesign Venue at FOH and Yamaha PM5D on monitors] so they can rely on recall functions.”

Every stage had similar monitor wedges in the shape of Synco’s proprietary range: the CW152 (15"), CW121 (12"), CW101 (10") and SW sub-lo. “A lot of festivals tend to use a variety of monitor systems,” said van Denzel, “but at WOMAD we decided a long time ago to standardise the stage sound to maintain consistency, and a lot of people like Ampco for that.”

Van Denzel was pleased that for the first year at a new site, and even hampered by the stodgy ground, his team managed to produce very good sound and contain it well.

He added: “Personally, I love WOMAD because the musical instrumentation is often so exotic and challenging from a technical standpoint. Being Dutch, a lot of our crew speak several languages which makes it easier to converse with musicians about things like optimum miking positions for their weird and wonderful instruments!”

NEWCOMER
This was Chris Smith’s first WOMAD as operations & events director, although as head of culture at Reading Council he had been directly involved in the last five festivals at Rivermead.

Said Smith: “Learning to work on a new site is one thing, but add the weather conditions and it’s quite a headache. It’s created big problems... tractors getting stuck in the mud, and the like! We lost two to three days of the get-in, and even two days into the festival we’re catching up with the infrastructure.”

Angus Watt and the Flaggers provided the iconic flags around the site and other notable companies on duty were Serious Stages, HPSS (BBC3 stage), generator firm Powerline and backline specialist Peter Webber Hire. Neg Earth serviced all stage lighting with the exception of Mystic Lights who ran Club WOMAD in the Big Red Tent.

Angus Watt and the Flaggers provided the iconic flags around the site; Serious Stages excelled with its high quality staging (HPSS looked after the BBC3 stage); generator firm Powerline and backline specialist Peter Webber Hire were also amongst the suppliers.

Health and safety management was handled by Tim Roberts at The Event Safety Shop, and security was divided between local firm Stuart Security and a small team from Cornerstone who have worked with WOMAD for around 20 years.

Bizarrely, security contributed to one of the biggest laughs of the weekend when, in an overzealous fit, the backstage security team initially prevented Peter Gabriel’s band members — one by one — from walking up to the stage. They clearly didn’t recognise the striking, bald, moustachioed figure of ace bassist Tony Levin or indeed Peter’s daughter, singer and keyboard player Melanie.

“How many bleedin’ people has he got in this band,” one frantic guard was heard to cry. ‘Sledgehammer’ was never more appropriate.