April

April 27

THE ANIMALS APPEAR LIVE IN MERIDEN, CT

Actually, yesterday, the 26th. I was on assignment, working with a partner videographer, covering an entire event, ranging from parades, to craft fairs, to amusement park rides and several concerts, plus an unexpected bonus of getting the opportunity to shoot a few minutes, on-stage, of Eric Burdon and The Animals. Of course, anyone over 50 who's heard of Rock 'n Roll will remember Eric's band as a legacy of the British invasion of the early '60s.

Eric Burdon of The Animals, Live in Meriden, Connecticut, April 26, 2008.

My partner and I got the unexpected pleasure of getting a backstage pass and permission from Eric's manager, to record some media coverage of the concert. So we were escorted to the stage during "We Gotta' Get Outa' This Place" and I, with my Sony XDCam with the Rode NT4 microphone and my partner with his XDCam, captured this legacy with a degree of fidelity this rock star has probably never been immortalized on prior. The pictures were stunning, and the sound was like a CD album. In all, we recorded the last 7 minutes of an extended version of the song, in which keyboard player Red Young made that Hammond B3 make that soulful wail that creates the state of sonic nirvana that only happens with '60s rock (personal opinion, mine). The Sony camera became the ultimate reality capture machine, delivering 30 photographic-grade images per second and studio-quality sound recording. Yes, the photo above is a single frame, actually part of a frame--this was cropped and reduced to 33% scale.

Bass player Paula O'Rourke was the epitome of sexiness. There is just something about a dame playing a bass. :-)  It was a good experience. And the XDCam proved itself second to none in performance. After we made the recording, we went backstage with Eric's manager and showed her what we recorded. I handed her my headphones and played the last clip. Her eyes lit up with surprise at the quality of the audio. We offered to make all footage available to them for their own use. I don't know if anything more will come of it, but this was a desirable event and one more subtle sign that things are moving in the direction that I now clearly see and want to embark on.