Freevolution takes place across two stages in Baltic Square and quayside at Spillers Wharf. The larger of the stages is the 'Innovation' stage at Spillers Wharf, where headliners included Maxïmo Park, Echo and the Bunnymen and Joe Jackson. Systems Etc put up two hangs of 12 XLC127DVX, powered by EV's Precision Series P3000RL amplifiers, with 14 X-Subs for subbass and Xi1152s for front-fills.
Surprisingly for Newcastle-upon-Tyne in spring, the weather was shocking; rainy with winds gusting up to 40mph. Brave John Ellis from Shuttlesound, Electro-Voice's UK distributor, headed up north to see how the new system would fare on its first British festival outing.
"Inevitably the weather compromised the sound on both stages, not helped by the scrims in front of the hangs," he reports. "On the main stage, I listened to The Motorettes, Hot Club, The Enemy, Joe Jackson, and Echo and the Bunnymen, and the XLC DVX performed admirably with very clean top end, plenty of mid range energy and very even crossover from the 12" DVX lower mids to the X-Subs with no 'hole' around the 100-150Hz mark. And of course there was plenty of low end from 14 ground-stacked X-Subs."
In Baltic Square, the second 'Imagination' stage was also equipped by Systems Etc, this time with an XLE compact array system, eight boxes per side with eight XLC215 bass units. Once again the system is powered by EV's Precision Series amplifiers.
(Jim Evans)
