‘Extreme hardcore’ for Chris Hewitt is the back cover of Pink Floyd’s Ummagumma album, which shows the band’s touring gear arranged in meticulous detail. He can tell you which of those pieces of equipment he now owns, stashed in a couple of warehouses around Cheshire, and the whereabouts of the rest. It probably won’t surprise you to know that in his short-trousered days he was an avid trainspotter.
Hewitt collects rock’n’roll equipment. Specifically, the pre-digital kind used by artists in the 60s and 70s. His encyclopaedic knowledge came into its own recently when he was hired by the makers of the films Bohemian Rhapsody and Rocket Man to recreate the old stage set-ups used by Queen and Elton John.
But it’s the WEM PA equipment favoured by many of the biggest bands and artists of the 60s and 70s and some of the legendary open-air festivals that gets Chris hottest. “The first thing I did was buy Pink Floyd’s five WEM mixers, and then I got Fleetwood Mac’s and David Bowie’s…”