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Britannia rules the sound waves

It started 40 years ago with a crew hiring out their band’s PA system when it wasn’t in use. Soon it attracted the attention of the world’s top artistes and events, leading to the UK’s Britannia Row becoming a pioneer of major event sound systems, whether for Frank Sinatra, Paul McCartney, Oasis or the Pope. Johnny Black reports

A ‘big noise’ in common parlance a decade or three ago was used to describe a person or company of special importance, presumably

because they made a lot of noise about themselves and their achievements.

While the early incarnations of UK audio rental company Britannia Row were certainly responsible for making more noise than virtu-ally anyone else at the time, their rapidly grow-ing status was based more on their pioneering abilities with concert sound.

UK companyToday, based at their massive warehouse in Twickenham, on the outskirts of south-west London, the company is run by the longstand-ing double-act of Bryan Grant and Mike Lowe,

but that’s not how it was in the beginning.Back in 1975, points out Grant, bands often

owned all their own equipment, and Pink Floyd was no exception.

“They had decided to take a year-long break from touring,” he recalls. “That decision, how-ever, presented them with the problem of what to do with all that gear. They could sell it and sack the crew, or they could keep the crew gain-fully employed by turning the equipment from a cost centre into a profit centre.”

This was achieved by purchasing a three-storey warehouse at 35 Britannia Row in north London, where the equipment could be stored, and allowing the crew to rent it out as a business.

Floyd also built a studio on the ground floor and still had enough space left over on the top

floor to accommodate an office suite and fulfil Roger Waters’ wish for a full-size snooker table.

“I was invited to join,” says Grant, “but I’d been running a sound company called IES [International Entertainer Services] since the early ‘70s, and I’d had enough of that, so I didn’t take up the offer.”

Thus, the first bosses of Britannia Row were Floyd crew members Robbie Williams (no, not that one) and Mick Kluczynski.

“Although I wasn’t part of the new company,” says Grant. “I was at Pink Floyd’s Knebworth gig on 5 July 1975, which was Britannia Row’s first official job. That came at the end of a couple of American tours and was a very cool gig, with an audience of about 100,000.”

Emerging from the Floyd fraternity gave Brit Row, as it soon became known, a head start

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because nobody then did bigger shows than Pink Floyd. So the new company was a natural choice for both promoters and artistes consid-ering major events.

The 150,000 devotees attending the Queen concert in London’s Hyde Park in 1976 heard them via a Brit Row system, as did the 200,000 who flocked to see Bob Dylan’s now legendary

Picnic at Blackbushe Aerodrome in 1978.

It was also in 1978 that Kluczynski headed off to establish Brit Row’s American office in Long Island. Business was good but, back home, problems were brewing.

“The band was getting fractious and fragmented,” explains Robbie Williams. “Every time there was a dis-pute, the accountants would come in and divvy up the assets. It made it difficult to keep going. At that point I brought Bryan in and we managed to negotiate a management buy-out with the accountants.”

Grant and Williams decided the best way ahead was to amalgamate all of the different Brit Row services - sound, lighting and staging - into one.

“We set up Britannia Row Productions, a trad-ing entity internally renting off all the other companies within the group,” explains Grant. “It carried on like that until 1981, when The Floyd’s Rick Wright and Roger Waters sold their inter-ests to Dave Gilmour and Nick Mason.

“So then we incorporated it all under Britannia Row Productions, with Robbie and I running it.”

Growing painsDespite the internal wrangling, the business had continued to steam ahead, starting long-lasting relationships with Peter Gabriel and The Cure in 1979.

As the ‘80s opened, Brit Row began another relationship, working with Stevie Wonder, but their ongoing closeness to Floyd was still caus-ing problems.

In the early days, a condition had been placed on the business, obliging them to only buy new stock out of profit, so if Floyd went on tour, almost all of Brit Row’s equipment went with them, making it hard to service other tours at the same time.

Grant remembers spending much of the early ‘80s developing the company’s ability to satisfy other clients, irrespective of what Pink Floyd were doing.

“There was a point where Floyd were touring and we also had four other tours out,” he says. “I thought that was pretty good going.”

It was, unquestionably, a major step forward, but in retrospect it was just the beginning of much bigger things to come.

One enduring association which began in this era was with Mickey Curbishley, now CEO of the PRG Music Group.

“We have worked on hundreds of shows together in Hyde Park since the Route of Kings series of concerts many years back,” he says. “I had the pleasure of working with Bryan and Brit Row

right up until I left the UK and moved to the US. “I have memories of staggering out of back-

stage VIP areas with him and looking for the night bus home.  Knowing and working with Bryan has been a big help for both myself and for PRG,” says Curbishley.

Top teamA lasting friendship which Grant had begun back in the early ’70s now blossomed into a much more significant business partnership which would have huge ramifications for the growing company.

“I first met Bryan in 1974,” reflects Mike Lowe, who was then working with Emerson, Lake And Palmer. “When ELP was offered the headline slot of the first California Jam at Santa Monica Speedway [6 April 1974], we realised our own sound system wasn’t up to it.

“There was going to be about 250,000 people there and one of the few companies who could deliver audio on that scale was IES. We took a huge amount of IES equipment to Cal Jam1 and it was great, so we abandoned our own system and switched to IES thereafter.”

As luck would have it, one of Lowe’s clos-est contacts at IES was Grant, in his pre-Floyd days. Their friendship continued into the ‘80s, by which time Mike Lowe was run-ning the rental side of innovative pro-audio company Turbosound.

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Britannia rules the sound wavesBryan Grant

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“We were in Islington [north London], five minutes round the corner from Britannia Row,” explains Lowe. “Turbosound had invested in mix-ing consoles that were no longer flavour of the month and Britannia Row had done the same with speaker systems. So Bryan and I started working together with Brit Row control and Turbosound speakers.”

When Lowe quit Turbosound and moved to Samuelson’s, his involvement with the pioneer-ing American audio com-pany MSI (Maryland Sound International) led to an-other fortuitous link with Brit Row.

“Some of the acts MSI did sound for, like Whitney Houston, George Benson and Luther Vandross, were heating up in Europe, do-ing arenas. I was looking after [MSI founder] Bob Goldstein’s acts in the UK but he didn’t want to partner with Samuelson’s, so I put him onto Britannia Row.”

One unfortunate upshot of this was that MSI took over representation of Brit Row’s clients in the US, which precipitated the late Mick Kluczynski’s then departure. His subsequent freelance career as MJK Productions would see him become a major force in live music TV presentations, culminating in his company producing UK music industry awards TV extravaganza the BRIT Awards.

Singing in the rainBrit Row’s association with MSI continued into the early ‘90s, but Lowe was not happy at Samuelson’s. “It was partly because their emphasis was more on lighting than on sound, so I decided to go freelance again. But on the day I resigned in 1987, Bryan in-vited me to dinner.”

Williams had decided to spend a year on tour as Floyd’s production manager, so Lowe agreed to stand in for him during that period. In the event,

Williams never returned and Lowe’s temp job evolved into a permanent position as a Brit Row director.

Almost immediately, Lowe was pitched in to what he now considers one of the most bi-zarre days of his career, with Frank Sinatra at The Roman Amphitheatre in Verona, Italy.

“Frank was grumpy all day,” recalls Lowe. “Then, when he walked onstage, the heavens opened. So the Italians quickly rigged up a canopy overhead, but it soon reached bursting point with gallons of rainwater. They clambered up and started poking it with long poles. Just as they pushed the water bubble over the front, Frank walked directly underneath and was completely drenched.

“His rug [hairpiece] looked like a drowned rat on his head, the mike was dripping wet, but he carried on singing.”

Herman Schueremans, Rock Werchter, Belgium“Bryan Grant is one of the people who inspired me 35 years ago to start Rock Werchter [now cap.

87,000]. That helped me to under-stand logistics of shows and festivals. I think of Bryan as a pioneer in the PA business.”

Chris Redburn, Redburn Transfer, UK“Back in 1982 we started out with of-fices in Britannia Row, so we’ve worked with them

since day one. They used an amazing Altec PA system at that time which all the trucking companies loved, because it was massive. Most systems fitted in one truck, but theirs had to go in two. Great stuff. Unfortunately, everything’s much smaller now. We’re doing Simple Minds and David Gilmour with them this year.”

What associates say…

“Not only do they have the ability to handle the

big projects, but they have the balls to take

them on”James Gordon

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Stuart Down, L-Acoustics, France and UK“Britannia Row has been deploy-ing L-Acoustics systems for more than 13 years and

with continued growth. The level at which they work is top of the game in both expertise and event profile. From the early days with Pink Floyd to Live 8, the London Olympics and the Diamond Jubilee, they never compromise on the quality of the sound for the show.”

Andy Lilywhite, Sennheiser UK“We have worked with Brit Row on a vast number of projects over the years including every BRIT Award show since 2002, MTV’s European Music Awards and various Robbie Williams’ tours. They approach each and every production with profes-sionalism and humour, both of which are vitally important in such a high-pressure environment. Forty years of supplying sound to the in-dustry is a huge achievement.”

What associates say…Sound evolutionThe next decade saw Brit Row not only con-tinue with the huge events which had be-come their trademark, but also begin work-ing with another wave of younger artistes, including Oasis, Manic Street Preachers and Inspiral Carpets, while simultaneously mov-ing into the burgeoning festivals field.

“That was another development from what I’d been doing with Turbosound,” re-flects Lowe. “They went back a long way with [Glastonbury founder] Michael Eavis, so I brought Glasto over to Britannia Row. That carried on for quite a few years and we end-ed up touring the European festival circuit every summer.

“That lasted until local companies grew up in all those countries and they didn’t need to bring in a British company,” he says.

Neil Warnock, CEO worldwide of The Agency Group, has been Pink Floyd’s agent since the early ‘70s, so has observed Brit Row’s evolution at close hand.

“Over the years there’s never been anything Brit Row couldn’t handle,” he declares, “One mammoth undertaking was when we had Pink Floyd playing on a massive barge on the canal beside St Mark’s Square in Venice [15 July 1989]. I can remember after the show, Robbie Williams, a big guy at six foot four inches [1.5m], came back to the hotel and literally collapsed from exhaustion – he went down like a house of cards.

“He’d been working non-stop to make the sound work for this astonishing event, which was being broadcast live on Italian television.”

That, Warnock emphasises, was just one example among dozens of the dedication that set Brit Row apart from the pack.

In 1991, Britannia Row finally out-grew their original premises and moved to a considerably larger building in Wandsworth, south London

Another major step forward for the com-pany had its seeds in Russia, at Moscow’s Red Square on 4 July 1992, when Kate Wright, a production assistant of just 10 days experience, first encountered Grant.

“I’d just started working with Mick Kluczynski who was then a freelance production director,” remembers Wright. “He’d been asked to un-dertake this job called Red Square Invites, with Jose Carreras singing. Brit Row were doing the sound.”

Just two years later, Kluczynski and Wright started their own company, MJK Productions, which soon took over production of the UK’s BRITs TV show. “Mick felt from the start that Brit Row was the right company to do sound for the show,” she reveals, “but it took a couple of years to get them in there. The rest is history.”

Freelance events and production manager Maggie Mouzakitis adds, “I’ve worked with them since I was 19 on acts like Depeche Mode and Oasis, but now it’s primarily events like the BRITs and MTV’s European

Mickey Curbishley

Neil Warnock

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Music Awards, where their knowledge of how to audio manage major events is invaluable.”

Olympic challengeThe summer of 1992 provided another pivotal moment when Brit Row took on the Barcelona Olympics.

“It was primarily a sports event, probably the first event of that sort we’d done. But there were musical elements in the opening and closing ceremonies, with Carreras, Pacido Domingo, Montserrat Caballe. We also handled the over-all PA system, and a huge amount of playback music. I think Barcelona was a game-changer in terms of the creativity of those shows. It was more inventive than any that had gone before.”

Lowe found the challenges of Barcelona invigorating and there’s little doubt that it opened Brit Row’s eyes to the potential of mas-sive events that were more than purely musical.

In 1994, the company commenced what turned out to be a long-term relationships with the Foo Fighters and Robbie Williams (the artiste one), but the event of the decade was unquestionably Oasis at Knebworth in 1996, for which more than three million people ap-plied for the 250,000 tickets available across

two shows.“The atmosphere was amazing, and so was

the sound,” enthuses Grant. “It was louder than hell, but we successfully contained it within the bowl. The sound monitoring people told me af-terwards that they’d only had three complaints. One was a local householder who said it was too loud, but the other two were disappointed because they’d invited friends round for a back garden barbecue, but the music wasn’t loud enough for them to hear it properly.”

The nation as a whole welcomed in the new Millennium with sound supplied for London’s Millennium Dome concert by Brit Row, and the first decade of that new era saw Grant, Lowe and team pumping up the volume at London’s Wembley Stadium (then 70,000) for Live 8 in 2005, broadcast to an estimated global TV au-dience of three billion, and raising ecological awareness with the 12 worldwide stadium con-certs of Live Earth in 2007.

As calm as Grant invariably appears on such occasions, he admits, “Actually, your heart is always in your mouth. I guess we’re just the ones who put our heads above the parapet. It’s a challenge, but that’s why we’re in this business.”

Stuart McPherson, KB Events, UK“Brit Row have used us as their preferred truck-ing company since 1997. They’ve been a true pleasure to work with on more events than

I can remember, but one that leaps to mind is a show on a beach in the Maldives with George Michael. I’m still not sure if they ever managed to get the sand out of the desk.”

Julian Lavender, Neg Earth Lights, UK“I started working with them in the ‘80s, when I was still a production manager with Tears For Fears and Peter Gabriel. Even now, having stepped back from ac-tive touring, I’m still delighted to be able to remain in touch with them.”

Matt Jackson, Fly By Night, UK“We’ve worked with Brit Row since we started providing live events transport in the ‘90s. This year alone we’ve done Mumford and

Sons, Royal Blood, Sam Smith, Bastille and Robert Plant together. There’s a photo-graph on the office wall showing their staff loading one of our trucks during a heavy snow storm in 2009. That’s a testament to the determination we both demonstrate to ensuring the show goes on regardless.”

Pete Gunn, production manager, Kasabian“I first worked with them on The Verve in 1993, and have since done Catatonia, The Libertines and Kasabian - to name a few – with them and they have consistently de-livered the best service throughout all the years I have worked with them.”

What associates say…

Britannia Row - Robbie Williams tour

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Desert classicsJim Baggott, long-time production director for UK promoter Harvey Goldsmith, worked with Brit Row on Live 8 and the FIFA World Cup, but his favourite recollection is the Pavarotti trib-ute, at the ancient stone city of Petra in Jordan, which took place in October 2008.

“We had a 40-piece orchestra, and live per-formances by Carreras, Domingo, Sting and more on a stage in the middle of the desert to a tiny audience. It was an amazing event, and Brit Row’s guys pulled it off faultlessly.

“The funniest thing was that we ended do-ing the live mix in a 400-year-old bedouin stone hut next to the stage which, amazingly, turned out to be a superbly soundproof re-cording environment.”

By 2012, Brit Row had outgrown its second home and moved again, with the Herculean feat achieved without any pause in their re-lentless schedule.

“It was [the Queen’s] Diamond Jubilee weekend,” remembers warehouse manager Charlotte Pearman. “We loaded out the Jubilee concert at Buckingham Palace and a few other tours from Wandsworth, moved the remaining warehouse gear while the concert was being set up, and then everything came back to us in our new Twickenham home.”

Brit Row’s special projects guru Josh Lloyd remembers, “The Diamond Jubilee was extraordinary. I spent three months coming up with the technical design, because there were loads of artistes plus a house band and an orchestra.

“We couldn’t shut down The Mall [leading to the Palace] in advance, so we did two weeks of rehearsals at the L2 rehearsal space in west London. We also had a very strange audience

configuration - we had to cover the entire Mall and St James’s Park so that no matter where anyone was, they’d hear the sound clearly.”

It might seem as if Brit Row had by now experienced everything imaginable, but there was still an-other surprise in store on 14 July 2012, when Paul McCartney joined Bruce Springsteen onstage in London’s Hyde Park for his final encores. For the crowd, it was an unbelievably historic moment, but the po-lice could see only that the show had over-run its curfew.

“The police view was that crowd control would become impossible if it went on any lon-ger. They threatened to arrest the promoter for over-running, so the plug was pulled,” recalls Grant. “Thank goodness it was a Springsteen crowd. An Oasis crowd would have probably lynched us.”

James Gordon, MD of digital console manu-facturers DiGiCo, has worked alongside Brit

Row since 2002, when they started using his ground-breaking D5 Live console. He feels that the chemistry between Grant and Lowe has played a large part in the company’s success.

“No matter how big or complicated it gets, Bryan laughs his way through the whole thing. He’s very laid-back, very confident. He and Mike are very different characters, but together they compliment each other very well. Not only do they have the ability to handle the big projects, but they have the balls to take them on.”

Asked to elaborate further on that chemis-try, Mike Lowe says, “Bryan very much enjoys engaging with people, doing the deals, and being more the public face of the organisation than me. Fortunately, I enjoy some of the nuts and bolts stuff, and the internal organisation. Having said that, we both do everything to some extent, so we really can understand what each other is doing.”

They say life begins at 40 and it certainly looks as if, after four decades at the pinnacle of the business, Britannia Row is a long way from de-rigging.

“We’re in the audio business and everyone needs audio now,” says Grant. “Opera singers used to refuse to use amplification, but that’s changed, while politicians need audio, the Pope needs audio. In fact, we did The Pope in Ruanda, 100,000 people I think that was…”

Charlotte Pearman

Josh Lloyd

James GordonJim Baggott

Britannia Row - Oasis at Slane Castle 2009