- Joined
- Sep 9, 2012
- Messages
- 419
- Location
- Poland, Warsaw (Central Europe)
- Tagline
- I love BIG amplifiers!
The beginning of Britannia Row
[...]
So, Britannia Row Productions, then: so-called because it was founded in 1975 at 35, Britannia Row, Islington, North London, by Pink Floyd.
Having been on the road more or less continually since the 60s, the band shifted more towards studio working, and needed a base for the sound and lighting equipment it had accumulated over all those years of ever-larger tours, along with the technical crew it had assembled to operate it all.
It was part of a trend several of these mega-bands followed at the time: The Who established a similar base at Shepperton Studios, west of London, Jethro Tull came to rest in Acton, West London, and Emerson, Lake and Palmer memorably bought an abandoned Odeon cinema in London’s Fulham Road to store their equipment – at the time they were trucking around 36 tons of kit between shows, including a quadrophonic PA system and of course Emerson’s flying piano – and act as a rehearsal/recording venue, Manticore Studios.
Thus Britannia Row Productions was established to hire out Pink Floyd’s equipment when the band was off the road, although the company’s first concert was Pink Floyd at Knebworth on July 5th, 1975, in front of some 100,000 people.
Britannia Row started out big, rather than growing from a ‘man and van’ operation as others had: it provided the systems for celebrated events such as Queen’s free performance in Hyde Park in 1976, which drew some 150,000 fans, and ‘The Picnic at Blackbushe Aerodrome’ two years later, headlined by Bob Dylan supported by Eric Clapton, Joan Armatrading and Graham Parker and the Rumour.
It had all come a long way from early PA systems using the likes of the WEM Audiomaster mixer, which offered just five inputs and one output – though you could daisychain them to give nine inputs into that one output! – and the column speakers used for vocals.
As venues got bigger, there was a demand for larger systems, so PA companies had turned to the ideas used in the cinemas of the 1930s, with horn-loaded speakers such as the Altec Voice of the Theater and the other designs preserved, restored and still played to much acclaim by Silbatone at the annual High End Show in Munich.
[...]
Amplifiers over the four last decades? TBC…
[...]
So, Britannia Row Productions, then: so-called because it was founded in 1975 at 35, Britannia Row, Islington, North London, by Pink Floyd.
Having been on the road more or less continually since the 60s, the band shifted more towards studio working, and needed a base for the sound and lighting equipment it had accumulated over all those years of ever-larger tours, along with the technical crew it had assembled to operate it all.
It was part of a trend several of these mega-bands followed at the time: The Who established a similar base at Shepperton Studios, west of London, Jethro Tull came to rest in Acton, West London, and Emerson, Lake and Palmer memorably bought an abandoned Odeon cinema in London’s Fulham Road to store their equipment – at the time they were trucking around 36 tons of kit between shows, including a quadrophonic PA system and of course Emerson’s flying piano – and act as a rehearsal/recording venue, Manticore Studios.
Thus Britannia Row Productions was established to hire out Pink Floyd’s equipment when the band was off the road, although the company’s first concert was Pink Floyd at Knebworth on July 5th, 1975, in front of some 100,000 people.
Britannia Row started out big, rather than growing from a ‘man and van’ operation as others had: it provided the systems for celebrated events such as Queen’s free performance in Hyde Park in 1976, which drew some 150,000 fans, and ‘The Picnic at Blackbushe Aerodrome’ two years later, headlined by Bob Dylan supported by Eric Clapton, Joan Armatrading and Graham Parker and the Rumour.
It had all come a long way from early PA systems using the likes of the WEM Audiomaster mixer, which offered just five inputs and one output – though you could daisychain them to give nine inputs into that one output! – and the column speakers used for vocals.
As venues got bigger, there was a demand for larger systems, so PA companies had turned to the ideas used in the cinemas of the 1930s, with horn-loaded speakers such as the Altec Voice of the Theater and the other designs preserved, restored and still played to much acclaim by Silbatone at the annual High End Show in Munich.
[...]
Amplifiers over the four last decades? TBC…
