John Craigie and the Rainbow Girls

photo: Keith Berson

Last Saturday, I got to video John Craigie and the Rainbow Girls playing at the Rio in Santa Cruz. There have been months where John was all I've listened to. He's a great songwriter and storyteller. He plays and travels all over, and was just back from a European tour.

His shows are special. The music's great, his songs are great, and his presence makes them memorable. I couldn't find any good live videos of his show online, so I offered to make him one. To my surprise, he said yes. You have to trust the universe.

photo: Giant Eye Photography

I've seen the Rainbow Girls with John a few times, and they have a great sound and feel. They were also kind enough to let me video their set at the show. More trust from the universe.

It was a great experience. I got to see up close how they do their sound check, and I got a little bit of a feel for some of the magic that their incredible sound guy was doing: Jonathan Kirchner. The sound was transparent. Jonathan was also incredibly helpful before and after the show. My fantasy is that one day, I'll need a good engineer for a big a show, and now I know who to contact.

Another surprise, was how quiet the stage was. It was a big stage, and the drums were off to the side. The main speakers were loud, and the bass amp was warm, but the stage was more quiet than I expected. A quiet stage, with the drums separated a bit meant that the recordings of the individual channels are more isolated from each other than I'd imagined they'd be. Nice.

The show was amazing. John had a great energy, and the band was sweet and solid. The Rainbow Girls sounded great.

And then Sunday it hit me: my computer is now full of video, and all the raw multi-channel audio from an awesome show by great musicians. Yep, not just a few mics, and not just a phone held up in the crowd, I've got all the mics, and at least a few decent up-close cameras. It's incredibly fun to play with. I hope we get something good from it.

The first audio sounds amazing, and the video seems usable. I hope we end up with something everyone likes.

Some early lessons from the show: Caitlin from the Rainbow Girls saved me from getting one angle that wouldn't have looked good. I tried to see what was wrong about it, and couldn't at the time, but I trusted her, and found something else. When I got home, I checked some of the early shots at the funky angle, and with a laptop, I could see how it didn't work. Two lessons there: definitely listen if someone says something about what they want (I got that part); and, bring a laptop, so I can check some of the video on a screen bigger than the camera (next time).

I'm sure there will be a lot more lessons as I get the video and audio together over the next couple weeks, but I could have used 3 people and 10-12 cameras. I only used 4, and that was enough for me to manage, but we could have used several more. Whatever I get from it, it's going to be fun to work on, and I'm going to learn things.