Now over 888 gigs later……
The beginning of this year (2005) felt like the horses bolting out of the starting gates.
I had 2 weeks off after New Year and was in denial. And what was the first thing on the agenda? Organise and plan a multitrack recording for Geoff’s upcoming 4 weeks of gigs at St Angas for a possible DVD release which would need a 3-4 camera video shoot.
Mal Logan took the bull by the horns and is coordinator, Tim Keppert and Bob Ruggiero in charge of filming with Gary Jones being 3rd cameraman. Between Tim, Bob, Gary and myself, I reckon we have video’d nearly every important gig Geoff has done in the last 5 or 6 years (here in Melbourne that is) plus I’ve recorded my mixes of those gigs and a heap more than that. (I hope someday soon to sift thru this archival stuff with the goal of compiling a bonus dvd, but 1st things 1st.)
Back to the project at hand, Gerry Pantazis and myself took care of the audio recording side of things and that was quite a head spin to start with but by the last one we had it down to a fine tuned routine.
About a year ago we had a crack at multitrack recording the gig, Gerry and I had spent several hours nutting it out on the phone he brought his hard disk recorder and drum mic kit and I brought the concert stage box/splitter plus every lead I own and we had a go.
The thing is, that over the last several years all of us involved with Geoff have been individually and collectively honing our skills in the various areas needed to pull together a project like this. And I’ve been at Geoff for some time now about the ‘team’ of expertise that has grown around him over time.
So, Tim Kepert put together a ‘demo’ dvd from an old Continental Café Souldiggers and Horns From Hell gig. At the show, I had recorded my front of house mix (as usual), Tim was up front with his camera filming close ups and Gary Jones was next to me filming the long shots. That all worked out ok and the next step was the above mentioned gig recording sess at St Andrews to explore the multitrack side of things. I know in the past I’ve been outspoken re the advantages of live to 2-track and by and large that is still my preference, especially nowadays when it’s more to do with time, cause there is simply just not enough hours in the day to spend remixing stuff from gigs that may never be used and in most cases will just sit on the shelf.
But this was different. The initial thought was that maybe we could do a Frank Zappa type approach and the band could try out new ideas and material live, which is pretty much the way they have worked over the years and if we got something good then we could add bv’s and horns and extra keys etc and maybe pull together a new album in that fashion.
Meanwhile…. Kel just happened to film some songs from that 1st recording sess last year and Tim married the vid to the multitrack mix and the possibility of the St Andrews dvd became one step closer to reality. The end result sound and image-wise proved promising enough for Mal to suggest we have a go at the real thing this January.
So by mid Feb, 4 gigs had been filmed and recorded, I also recorded the gigs to minidisk so we could have a quick listening reference, because, of course, coming back to my previous point re time, before any mixing or editing can be done, decisions need to be made re what songs worked the best performance wise. Imagine having to mix 12-13 hrs of music before you could find out what songs worked the best.
Cut to now, a short 10 weeks after the last Souldiggers gig at St Angas in Feb, and the final mixing is well under way, editing is like wise well under way. The mix should be mastered by the end of April and all being well married to the vision edit after that. This is a huge job in itself - song by song after having edited the 3 and 4 camera shots into a cohesive whole, to then synch it up with the finished mixes (like I said every part needs each persons expertise and all of us are y doing the steep curve one way or another, that’s for sure!).
All being well, there should be a live St Andrews Hotel Souldiggers DVD ready for release in June.
Photos courtesy of Rob Harwood
