4 More Days To Go : Win A Copy Of Chris Hewitt’s : The Development Of Large Rock Sound Systems Volume 2
To Coincide with the release of Chris Hewitt’s : The Development Of Large Rock Sound Systems Volume 2 Book. Chris has very generously donated a copy for one of you lucky visitors at home.
Chris Hewitt’s second volume of “The Development of Large Rock Sound Systems” is a lavishly illustrated, 500 photograph strong opus which charts the rise of big PA systems in rock music. It further incorporates the evolution of the 70’s band van companies that hired the equipment and some of the biggest equipment manufacturers.
And while it doesn’t make for a very snappy title and draws generously from the same sources and stories found in volume one, the selling point here is his focus on the 50th anniversary of Pink Floyd in Pompeii – then and now.
The role of both Pink Floyd and fellow WEM stack users Led Zeppelin is contextualised alongside bands like The Who and ELP etc, who invested in themselves to adapt to the burgeoning transatlantic rock market.
Pink Floyd at Pompeii is seen through the eyes of Scottish/French film director Adrian Maben, who shares some significant memories and summarises the Pompeii event as “A visual scrapbook of music and trivial conversation. A record of the passing of time.”
In recreating the events 50 years later, Hewitt imbues the Pompeii show with extra significant that stretches generations. And the fact that this book will sell on the back of that speaks volumes about his grasp of a niche market.
There are also some significant recollections from the late Peter Watts, Floyd’s then road manager who was an audio innovator before falling victim to rock and roll excess.
But the book is really as much about the author Chris Hewitt himself, a man whose obsession is pin pointed as having starting in 1971 when he first saw the WEM gear shot on Floyd’s ‘Ummagumma’ album.
He subsequently worked at the 1972 Bickershaw Festival, and much later the celebrated Deeply Vale Festivals.
Mark Radcliff best summarises both the man and the project thus: “Chris has a reality. He wanted to build this system and he has done it and I admire him. Those WEM stack are totemic.”
Hewitt himself says: “I built up vintage WEM equipment to be able to recreate the whole Isle of Wight and Pompeii PA’s.”
In a surreal update, he organized the recreation of Pink Floyd in Pompeii in his own Cheshire field, inviting The Australian Pink Floyd to play 4 numbers from the Pompeii set, which actually took 6 hours so they could get the correct camera angles.
He gives a generous 12 pages to this event, but as Australian Pink Floyd’s Stephen McElroy says about the experience; “The particular combination of vintage equipment has a certain sound about it. It’s different to any other system I’ve ever played through or heard.”