Plymouth belonged to the martians
26th May 2010
It has long been an ambition of mine to connect my determination to educate the world about professional audio to that same industry that has kept me off the streets for 30 years. In setting up the Live Sound course at Deep Blue Sound in my home town of Plymouth, I have gone some way to achieving this, but for me the actuality of what goes on in the arenas, theatres and fields of the world can only ever be properly realized through first-hand experience. As might be imagined, this is not always very straightforward, for as soon as the word ‘student’ is mentioned to the large majority of performing professionals, their faith in your ability to do their art justice rapidly starts to decline. The thrill of the live performance is the inspiration to those that sign up at DBS, and the feeling of involvement in a spectacle that has 10,000 people on their feet is the spark that gets us up in the morning…well, it is for me anyway. The problem has always been bridging the gap, making it real and igniting that spark.
In the summer of 2009 I was privileged to be able to mix the live production of Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of The War of The Worlds for the first time. Now this is a spectacular event in anyone’s book, and if ever there was a show that involved all the technical disciplines imaginable, this is it. TWOTW has it all – rock band, orchestra, memorable music, singers, actors, massive projection, huge lighting rig, surround sound, moving scenery, illusions, pyrotechnics, you name it…oh, and there are Martians, one of which is 15m tall and really quite aggressive. As an inspiration to an aspiring live sound engineer, there could be no better. How cool would it therefore be to be able to bring this show to the classroom? As a shot in the arm to the noise boys of the future, this show provides just the right dose. But War of The Worlds, in Plymouth? Nothing ever happens in Plymouth! Well, not since 1588 anyway, and I can’t think of a musical interpretation of Drake’s defeat of the Spanish Armada that has sold as many records.
On May 8th 2010, it would seem that the unimaginable had happened – in the main hall of City College, Plymouth, the lights went down, a field of stars appeared on a huge screen and the face of a young Richard Burton materialized from the darkness with the iconic words from the beginning of H G Wells’ masterpiece, ‘No-one would have believed…’ The War of The Worlds had arrived, complete with huge projection, holographic imagery and surround sound. But where were the Martians? Well, frankly they are just too big to fit in CCP’s main hall, so we had to do with Jeff Wayne himself, who is much more suitably dimensioned. To fill a few more seats on stage we also had Gaetan Schurrer and Steve Nolan, Studio Engineer and Technical Production Director for TWOTW Live respectively, all of whom gave up their valuable time to be there.
And so unfurled the extraordinary story of Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of The War of The Worlds; from its initial inception from Jeff’s encounter with H G Wells’ book, to the recording of an epic album in the late 1970’s through to the digital re-mastering and creation of a 5.1 version, and onwards to the realization of a massive live touring production, this was a riveting and inspirational tale, straight from the mouths of the very people responsible. And all of this was happening in front of 300 lucky students, ranging from 11 year-olds to higher education students, (and quite a few very excited tutors too), all of them getting the kind of insight into a world that most can only ever dream of. It must be said that the best question of the day came from a fellow 11 year-old at my son’s school, who asked Jeff Wayne who he would use for the singing roles if he were to re-record his masterwork for the modern era – I could see by the look in Jeff’s eyes that the wheels were turning! If ever was education making a real connection to its subject, this was it. The only problem we have now is how we follow it!