While the rock and pop luminaries were gathering in Hyde Park, some of Africa’s finest musical talent assembled to perform at Live8’s sole all-African event. Staged amid the distinctive Biomes of the Eden Project in southwest England, Africa Calling proved a magical experience for a capacity crowd and a stellar cast.

The concert was presented in association with WOMAD and its co-founder Peter Gabriel, together with Youssou N’Dour, who worked with WOMAD’s artistic director Thomas Brooman to assemble the lineup.

Eden Project chief executive Tim Smit provided the venue and galvanised local backing for the show.

Their combined efforts led to a host of the continent’s

top stars agreeing to perform.

Alongside N’Dour – who was helicoptered down from London to duet with Dido, the pair then flying on to the Paris Live8 show – were Ayub Ogada & Uno, Mariza, Thomas Mapfumo, Coco Mbassi, Modou Diouf and O Fogum, Geoffrey Oryema, Angelique Kidjo, Tinariwen, Kanda Bongo Man, Daara J – and, from somewhere slightly closer to Cornwall, Peter Gabriel.

Production came from Ampco Pro Rent (PA), Protone (backline), Neg Earth (lights) and Done & Dusted (TV and video), with production manager David Stallbaumer and stage managers Steve Field and Tony Morris.

Ampco Pro Rent (APR)’s standard festival control setup stood them in good stead, with barely a week to prepare during the peak festival season.

The main stage PA consisted of a Synco by Martin Audio W8LC Compact line array with support subs flown in line with the compacts..

APR production manager Dieter van Denzel (who mixed FOH with Jeroen Ebskamp) explains: “With a roof capacity of just 2000kg, using the compact line array and our new subs was a perfect solution as it’s very light but sounds fantastic. It performs like a big line array – it has the same number of HF units as larger types but you fly it like a really small line array. Everyone was raving about the way it sounded from the arena to the top of the hill, where we ensured it stopped, since Eden has sensitive neighbours.”

52-channel Midas Heritage 2000 and 3000 consoles at both front of house and monitors provided control. Says van Denzel: “I approached this show like a regular television show which APR does a lot. We mixed it from scratch without soundchecks and in that situation it’s vital to have all the channels to work on all the time. Most of the mics stayed on the same channel, allowing quick changeovers and connection to OB mobiles.” 48 channels of BSS mic splitters routed signals to the TV and radio mobile trucks.

Protone, the oldest and largest Benelux backline company, provided generic backline and instruments for all 12 bands. The rest of the APR team comprised Steve Watson, Koen Benschop and backline specialist John ‘Cable’ Hessing.

Concludes Brooman: “It was a complete team effort with, of course, all the fantastic people here at Eden. A massive great weight of professional impetus and energy resulted in this. It was a big production for WOMAD and a brilliant result.”