Hi All
These are my personal observations of the Caister 2005 Organ & Keyboard Festival, (At least the parts I attended over the week, but with so much going on it was not possible to go to everything)
Please read the entire article as interpretations changed over the week.

Friday was hectic as usual with checking in and a brief wonder round the site.
The night concert started with Michael Farrar on Yamaha Organ and Keyboards, with a mainly a Big Band/March feel to his performance, 2nd up were Lingwood & Jones who played both Solo and Duets + some Vocal works that covered most Genres, instruments used were a combination Yamaha, Roland, Technics + an Instrument made up of various manufactures instruments in one cabinet, 3rd up was Janet Dowset on her Trusty EL900 and gave an excellent varied performance as usual, final artist was Steve Lodell who is mainly into Jazz, however as it had been a long day I left before he started. (He was on site most of the week doing various shows so plenty of time to see him again)
Saturday saw the launch of Tyros 2, which compared to the original Tyros is a vast improvement, sound wise however it still fell far short of my Wersi Abacus with OAS6, the styles however were very impressive, until you realise that Tyros 2 is just a style machine, and which if you remove them and just stick with simple drum tracks, you find out that Tyros 2 has very little to offer to someone who wants to play the instrument themselves, and which to me goes against everything an instrument should be.(This is my Personal Opinion Only)
Wersi were showing the new Xeios (with the prototype OAS 7 Software which should be available about the middle of October) along with the other instruments which were still on OAS 6.
The night concerts started with Angie Diggens on her Yamaha Electone, an artist I had never heard before, and considering she is only 18 gave a really impressive performance, featuring Classics, Band and Modern music, she also made full use of the 18 note pedal board using both feet in the classical and theatre music, her singing were also quite good. (But not my cup of tea)
2nd up was James Sargeant on the Tyros 2, and what a disappointment it was, as no matter what registration he used the instrument had a samey sort of sound, (The Organs were an exception and were certainly the best organ sounds Yamaha as produced, but still quite some distance from the real thing) the crowd agreed as unlike Angie Diggens who got generous applause for all her music, on what is now a very old instrument, James Sargeant could barely get a 3rd of the 1500 or so strong audience to applaud.
John Walker was up next with his HX1 Electone and various expanders, and was up to his usual standard, with his unique and very commercial type of sound which was very much appreciated by the audience.
Nicholas Martin was the final artist playing his top of the line Technics Organ and certainly got some good Theatre sounds out of it, (He is primarily a Theatre Pipe Organist) however his style of playing is not really for me, so I left this one early.
After being disappointed with Tyros 2 both during the day and in the concert I decided not to go to the launch party, as I would probably have been totally bored.

Sunday Morning saw Angie Diggens once more on stage for another excellent performance, this was followed by Daniel Watt who showed how to use a computer based sequencer with a keyboard, as well as answering various questions about computers and Midi, Janet Dowsett then took the stage to show the Audience the basics to getting a realistic sound from the instrument that you are playing. (Phrasing, Pausing, Touch, Expression etc) In the Afternoon I decided to go to the Roland G70 OS2 Demo and I have to say that apart from the suspect amp & speakers used, it is an excellent instrument that can be played with or without styles, the main new feature however was Guitar Mode and this really was something special, for those that have seen or heard the Real Guitar VST Soft Synth you will know what I mean. (Yamahas Tyros 2 Super Articulation Guitars pale in comparison)
Moving over to the main concert hall, John Walker Was well into his afternoon session, but what came after was the main item I was waiting for, and this was James Ewins playing his personally imported Yamaha Staga Electone, (Yamaha UK have said they will not be importing this model as they don’t consider they could make enough sales) and I was not disappointed, the sounds and styles being excellent, and certainly putting the Tyros 2 to shame, so if you ever get the chance to here a Staga, make sure you have a listen.
Sunday Night saw Jean Martin take the first spot with her trusty EL900 Electone, (Still one of the most popular instruments with solo players in the UK) not normally one of my favourites but her various playing styles certainly went down well, particularly the theme music from Titanic which combined with the movement up ad down of the part of the stage she was on, combined with the lighting effects, really set the atmosphere.
The rest of the night was given over to Roland’s Organ power feature, (Apparently first started in the USA some years ago) and started off with David Thomas on the Top of the range Roland Atelier Organ and was well into Big Band and Marches, he was followed by the one and only Tim Flint, (If you ever saw or have seen pictures of Liberace, then you have seen Tim as he follows a similar stage dress style) with a varied performance as usual ranging from Theatre to Ballad to Swing etc, not forgetting the usual cracking of jokes between songs, (The one about loosing weight was Hilarious) mixed in with this Organ start-up was a folk musician playing a Roland Accordion, (I didn’t know they made any) however this was definitely not my cup of Tea. After a short break the show continued with Sean Montgomery on the Rodgers Classical Organ, (Rodgers being owned by Roland since 1988) only three tunes were featured which gave a pleasant change from the proceeding Artists, next was what I was looking forward to, which was Ralph Schink from Germany playing the G70v2, and what a performance from both instrument and player, which included Classical, Swing, Rock, Trance, Techno Folk etc, with both the Guitar and styles really standing out, one thing that was noticeable however, was that good though the Keyboard was, when you compared it to the performances on the previous Atelier instruments, the limitation of a single keyboard (Even 76 Notes of which he made full use of) showed up.
Final Artist of the night was Yuri Tachibana from Japan, again on the Roland Atelier and what a performance, particularly the Japanese Opera Piece that she featured. (Which also proved that if the instrument is good in the first place, you don’t need special instruments setups for different markets?)

Mondays first stop was the Wersi room were Daniel Watt did a demonstration concert on the EX1 Expander, this was followed by an informal concert by Claudia Hirschfield on the Wersi Scala using just the speakers in the instrument, unfortunately the room acoustics were not ideal and so the sound had a very bass heavy sound to it, still quite enjoyable, but I would say “Must try harder”.
It was then off to the Korg stand were Rod Pooly was demonstrating the PA1x with all the new expander packs, the first thing that I noticed was that unlike other instruments there was nothing that stood out, but this made for a very pleasant listen, as it is rare to hear such a nicely integrated instrument, quality wise I would say the sounds were of the old generation, but for playing in cocktail bars or anywhere a nice easy going laid back style was required, the PA1x would be absolutely ideal.
Monday Afternoon began with a visit to the Wersi stand were Daniel Watt was showing the ins and outs of OAS6, and which took about an hour to just scratch the surface of its capabilities, following on was a move to the concert hall were Johannes Freitag and Claudia Hirschfeld were performing an informal concert to a large audience, (Apparently most of the manufactures stands were quiet during this time) both performers played singly and together to give a good hours entertainment, the Disney music played by Johannes Freitag went down well, as would be expected from the organist of Euro Disney Paris.
Monday Night started with Peter Shaw on Ketron XD9 & SD1 complete with Pedal board, and he was absolutely fabulous, if you ever want to find out what Ketron can do, have listen to Peter Shaw, the improvised Bass Lines in some of the Jazz pieces were great to see and hear, as far as sounds go apart from the Theatre Organ sounds all were spot on with the music played.
Moving on we had none other then the Maestro Himself (The More Mature in the Uk and Europe will know exactly who I mean) the one and only Brian Sharp (Who has been in the music business for about 50 years or so and has played with many top stars and musicians) playing Orla (Technote Worldwide) Organ and additional keyboards his performance just has to be seen and heard to be believed.
Next up was the Organist From Disneyland Paris playing his Wersi Nova instrument, (About 15 to 20 years old, this instrument can still hold its head up in comparison to modern competition, due to the constant update development of Wersi, the 24bit sampled sounds added in the late eighties and further updated in the early nineties being a case in point) he also had with him an Audio Recorder which had all the narration and effects used at Disneyland, however while the playing performance was good, without the visual effects you would get at Disneyland it didn’t really do it for me.
Claudia Hirschfeld was the final artist playing the 3 manual Wersi Lourve, she gave a solid & polished performance, but apart from a couple of tracks the performance did not really stand out as much as I had anticipated, the exceptions were her Elvis Presley Medley and her tribute to Jimmy Smith, with the improvisation of the Bass lines using both feet on the pedal board would have made Jimmy proud.
Tuesday Morning Howard Beaumont was demonstrating Tyros 2, however even with his long time talents, the Tyros was still only good on styles, the sounds just not giving you the impression that you were listening to a live performance.
Tuesday Afternoon saw the usual hour long performances of home users who were brave enough to get up in front of an audience, instruments on stage included mainly Roland and Yamaha including Tyros 2, and this is what came as a big shock, as while all performances were good the Home users who played Tyros 2, (Obviously Tyros 1 owners) totally blitzed the Professional Players and Web site Demos, the sounds coming from Tyros 2 being absolutely brilliant, and I have to say Well Done Yamaha. (And looking back, this is whom Yamaha designed Tyros 2 for)
For Professional users however I think it does not give the flexibility required, (Hence the poor showings and Demos) the PSR 3000 being the more sensible Yamaha Option.
The Maestro Brian Sharp, who once again was absolutely brilliant, followed the Home Users.
Tuesday Night began with Howard Beaumont on the Yamaha CVP Clavinova and while piano was dominant he also used many of the other sounds and rhythms on the instrument, he was followed by the Musical Director of the festival, Peter Hayward again playing the Clavinova, once again a polished performance including a couple of traditional Swedish tunes. (He now lives in Sweden)
Next up was Brett Wales on the Wersi Scala and surprise, surprise, a Korg PA1x Keyboard, the various styles of music played was absolutely brilliant, (Not sure about the Samba Medley) one big surprise were the three tunes he played on the Korg, (An instrument he feels has been overlooked against the big Manufactures) and I have to say I have never heard a keyboard sound so good and integrated, talking to lot of people after the show most were initially thinking oh no not another keyboard, but after hearing Brett play (Particularly the Miller sound and Duelling Banjos) they were totally gob smacked, (Amazed) obviously the sequencer was used in some tracks most noticeably Duelling Banjos were once the tune speeded up he was playing the Banjo with his right hand and Guitar with his left, back to the Scala he continued with Bohemian Rhapsody from Queen, this being brilliant by the fact that he played the Words sung at the beginning of the song etc, and mapped them to the keyboard, so that when the notes are played the words sing out as real.
Final Act was John Mann with his One man show, which included his 30 year old Eminent organ and also the Clavinova, the show is performed as you would see in typical Varity Theatre with all the usual costume changes, (If your not from the UK then you probably wont understand the act unfortunately) once again a simply brilliant performance.
Wednesday Morning started with a visit to the concert hall to see Richard Bower explaining how to get the best from your keyboard, and I have to say I picked up a couple of tips that I had not thought of.
I then moved down to the Korg stand were Brett Wales was giving a demo of the Korg PA1x, while at the same time he was also finding out about all the advancements of the expansions that were now out for the Keyboard. (His own instrument is the old PA1x that he has now had for 2 months)
Moving back to the Concert Hall, Daniel Watt was showing the use of audio files in sequencing, and also how VST Instruments worked, and in spite some minor incompatibilities of the Logic software with his new laptop; a very great amount of information was gleaned.
Wednesday Afternoon Brett Wales was performing an informal concert on his Scala and Korg PA1x, once again giving another brilliant performance, Paul Carman followed on the Orla and was giving a polished performance, I however moved down to the BCK room were Hammond were demonstrating there instruments, including the 333 which was a single keyboard and which when a second keyboard and pedal board were added, gave a much more affordable emulation of a B3, (When combined with a Genuine Leslie of course) Ketron were also in the same room, and the combination of the two was brilliant.
Wednesday Night saw the show start with Glyn Madden playing tyros 1 and PSR 9000 to add additional layers to the sound, performance was such that I had never heard Tyros sound so good.
Next up was Chris Powel on Roland Atelier who also gave a good but not exceptional performance, likewise the following performer, Phil Tempest who just didn’t seem to have the fire of his normal performances.
I did not stay to see the final performer Stan Koyama as I had seen him twice before, and to me sounds just like a Midi file that’s been over quantized.
Thursday was fairly quiet with a wind down feel, however the concert at night with Daniel Watt was good. (I left after this as I had a 7-hour drive home, and so decided to travel overnight to miss the traffic)
Overall the Festival was good but not exceptional, the Festival in Blackpool in May being far superior.
Anyway these are my personal thoughts on the Festival, others may totally disagree but I can only speak for myself.
Bye for Now.

Bill

Bill,

An absolutely superb review of the festival. This is such a big help to us USA players who love organ, but suffer due to the popularity of workstations and arrangers here. It's great to hear someones perspective on the performers as well as the instruments they play.

Thank you so much, it was a wonderful article.

Regards,
Al

abacus. I was preparing to post a Caister Keyboard report myself but you have covered everything that I agree with so no need for me to post my report.
The best board at Caister for me was the Korg PA1X. The best value board was Korg PA50 at only £699. The PA50 is basically a cutdown PA80...No after-tough or plug in board option but at £699 who's complaining.

well done abacus on an excellent report.

Graham UK

Great post! How fortunate you guys are to hear top players and have side-by-side comparisons of new and old keyboards and organs in concert like that. Is there a website for the Caister Festival? I'd like to consider flying over from the US and attending sometime.

i agree an excellent report, obviously the experienced tyros owners,knew how to bring out the best in the tyros 2,maybe even Yamaha have built an even better instrument than they were fully aware of.
Did liontracs make an appearance? mike

Lionstracs did not make an appearance at Caister. They are busy finishing off some new features for their machine which will be implemented in the next few weeks. I don't want to post what these are yet, I think it's all hush hush at the moment until Domenico updates his site.
I'm almost finished going through the ins and outs of the Mediastation (being an owner of the top model). I'm going to get to grips with the VST plugins and load some stuff into the machine like Giga sounds.
I'll post what I think soon and will also try to get some MP3's done when I ask my mate if I can upload some stuff onto his site. Stay tuned.

Hi abacus
Thanks for your report. Well done.
Franky

Why dont we have these festivals in the USA!!! Argggggggg!

You got that right!!!! As a society Americans are preoccupied with other things like spectator sports, dam shame!

A very well written and balanced report.
Thanks it was informative and very much appreciated.


I wonder if there was any showing of General Music or Gem products?

Hey Abacus - Thanks for the trip down memory lane.

I had forgotten about some of the demonstrators that used to be around over 20 years ago when I was selling Organs and Keyboards but you sparked off a lot of good memories of those people

Howard Beaumont was a great player but unfortunately we took him for a meal before one of our public concerts and he lost the fish dish all over the Farfisa Coronet he was playing at the time.

Another time Brian Sharp was demonstrating a Hammond Regent organ for us and, as you probably know, he use to like a drink or two and promptly fell off the organ bench at the very begining of a concert we were arranging - just keeled over. We had to announce that he had been taken ill to the audience and sober him up out the back.

Glynn Madden is a very good player and I like his style but whatever happened to the others we used to use like Brian Rodwell, Les Bonner, Tony Pegler and Paul Daniels brother (was it Phil - I can't remember now)

Those guys could really make the instuments of the day sound great. Mind you some of the organ names seem to have disappeared now. Names like: Elka Orla, Farfisa, Lowrey, Thomas, Technics, Wurlitzer, Riah etc and more obscure ones like Cavendish, Bird and Kimball (That only Minns used to sell in the UK).

Good to see Wersi - back in the UK as well

Many thanks for the review - much appreciated

KFingers

Abacus, thanks for your detailed report about the Festival.
It let me feel like I've been there...



Nice to see that you liked the new Guitar Mode as I like it.
I find it to be a very nice and cool feature that makes very easy to program Guitar parts in songs and styles.
Nonetheless it can be also very funny to play it in real time.

Hi Kfingers
You would be surprised how many are still going, although some have now passed away to the Great Organ in the Sky. The name you were thinking of is Trevor Daniels.
Here's a link to a site that might interest you though.
http://www.organfax.co.uk/

Bill

Abacus: Terrific insightful review. Thanks for sharing. - Scott

Hi Esh
Here’s a link to the company that organises the Caister and Blackpool Festivals. http://www.keyboard-cavalcade.co.uk/index.htm
Don’t forget the Stop Press section.
Also pop along to this site, as there are quite a few different Festivals in the UK. http://www.organfax.co.uk/

Bill

Bill,

In word Wow, thank you so much for this great report. I am an organ fanatic and would love to have a private chat with you one of these days. (Time permitting.)

quote:
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Originally posted by Dnj:
Why dont we have these festivals in the USA!!! Argggggggg!
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Quote

You got that right!!!! As a society Americans are preoccupied with other things like spectator sports, dam shame!
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There used to be a home organist festival of sorts in Florida but do not know if that still exists.

Does anyone here want to explore doing a Keyboard - Organ festival if so, lets start a new topic and see what can be done.

Jerry

Was Bill Irwin there?

Tom. Both Bill Erwin & Bill Horn normally bring over a group of 20 interested people from the USA, but this October Keyboard festival we only saw one couple who had organised there own visit to the festival.
Organ societies all over the UK are very strong and the Caister Festival was 20 years old this October. It will next time (April 2006)move a few mile down the road to another holiday camp near Lowtestoft, Norfolk. UK.

The link is http://www.organfax.co.uk/sceptre-promotions.html

Hi abacus (don't know your real name)

I'm glad you enjoyed my concert slot and Stagea. It is a very unique sound as you can appreciate and I wanted to get across the various styles that Stagea can produce, including the club anthem style which was demonstrated nicely in "Under The Sea". They were all fairly simple pieces to play and you can see how easy it is to get Stagea to sound good.

Did you buy a copy of my CD by the way? If you want one let me know and we'll sort something out, I still have loads left and once my website is up and running I will sell them online to. 'Stagea Styles' is my latest CD, whilst 'Go The Distance' was my original one.

Interestingly, John Walker and I did a sound comparison between the HX-1 and Stagea, the difference was astonishing! Stagea sounded like the original instruments whilst the HX sounded like a reproduced sound, smoother and more like a synth.

Anyway, thanks for listening on the day and maybe I'll be playing at an Organ Society near you sometime soon!

Regards

James

sorry, do know your real name - Bill!