Writing about music, it was once said, is like “dancing about architecture.” It’s certainly true that no matter how carefully we describe a piece of music, the only way you can ever truly appreciate what it sounds like is to listen to it.
But does the same limitation apply to music videos and live performances? Can you capture the experience of a show by getting it on video, or will the output always feel just that little bit deficient next to actually standing in the crowd? The finest purveyors of live video recordings argue that while a screen is never going to be the same as standing in front of an artist, their carefully produced output is getting closer and closer to capturing the essence of the whole experience. The best, though, are creating their own experiences to begin with.
The classic ‘gig capture’, of course, has been around for years. We see it in its early forms in single camera grabs of classic 60s and 70s bands on late night television, and in its more modern incarnation in coverage of modern day super-festivals, where stadium filling bands are carefully captured and delivered neatly packaged into our living rooms, often with only a few minutes post-production. But what of those turning the capturing of a gig into an art form?
PHOTOS ©HMWK – Europavox Sessions #2
The event creators
In an ideal world, the perfect live video will be set up to be just that. With a beautiful backdrop, a curated audience or a made-for-video setlist, the quality of a live recording can be lifted. The classic example, perhaps, is Nirvana’s sensational – but also notably out of character – MTV Unplugged recording.
The Europavox Sessions, which took place at Europavox Clermont-Ferrand for the second time in 2023 in association with ARTE, are an entity that fits that philosophy. With a small audience in a hidden venue behind the festival’s smaller stages, the Sessions, their filming under the management of head of programming Jose Correia, capture an artist on stage, but in a controlled environment.
“The idea is to have the audience uncover the European scene in all its diversity,” Correia says. “The artistic approach is to take a nice frame, a nice set up, that is stronger than the usual on-stage set up.”
“When we broadcast, the artists and the director meet and talk about how they are presented, to take requests and think about that presentation. Christine and the Queens’ session in a church [part of another ARTE program], for example, saw the director set up the bigger picture, but the band added direction, and extra musicians. The discussion was about compromise, combining the creative filming experience and the band’s desires.”
“We can do several takes,” Correia continues. “The problem is that this breaks the kind of feeling that you get live, and the relationship between the audience and the artist, so we try not to do that if possible. A key element is the editing. You can tell a slightly different story in the way the recording is edited.”
Svaneborg Kardyb (Denmark) – Europavox Sessions 2023
Greek folk-pop icon Marina Satti is one of the acts that has featured on ARTE Sessions, and she sees a straight line between live presentation and recording as an art form. “Everything comes from my arrangement and curation,” Satti says. “I direct my live shows and my choreography. When I collaborate on visuals, it’s very personal, a representation of my identity. I try to portray the same mixture of influences, from Greece, the Balkans and the Eastern Mediterranean, in my videos.”
“For recordings like ARTE, I do feel a little stressed, but I do try to forget I’m being filmed and focus on the live side of things,” she continues.
Satti also appeared in Colors, a really minimalist series of recordings that has featured a host of international acts performing against a backdrop that is nothing more than a green screen replaced with their choice of a single stark colour.
“Colors is minimal, but I’m not,” Satti laughs. “But I was thrilled to be invited. I discovered so many artists through that series, which gives people who are different the space to exist. A couple of years ago it would have been almost impossible for someone singing in Greek to travel and perform.”
“I did Colors after they contacted me in the summer of 2021, and it was a great match. The series has a Mediterranean feel. They do it all in one take, and don’t really edit. All I had to do was find what I was going to wear, a really traditional outfit that references my culture, and perform. I actually love their minimalism.”
The ‘behind the scenes’ artists…
The second dominant type of ‘outside the gig’ live music recording is essentially created through access to a private space. It can be seen in fantastic form in documentaries like The Beatles’ ‘Get Back’ (on which the actual camera work is straightforward, with the band and their dynamic left to do the talking), or in a more modern style in the countless breathtaking angles that appear throughout Ed Sheeran’s deeply personal documentary ‘The Sum Of It All’.
Of course, most of us can only dream of such access, but a behind the scenes connection can produce stunning results for less-celebrated artists, too. Take Sean Treacy, who began filming the appearances of a series of local and international acts in North Dublin practice space Guerilla Studios, closely connected with high-flying bands Lankum, Percolator and Katie Kim. Recording ‘The Practice Sessions’ means he can set up and film bands intimately: he prefers to use subtle camerawork, placing small cameras within a few inches of some of the instrumentation sets up a unique, fly-on-the-wall type perspective of an intimate rehearsal space.
“The videos are a nice promotional tool for the studio,” Treacy says, “it’s a ‘friends, DIY thing’ without a commercial element, and the videos follow that route, and help fund albums.”
“The set up was quite ad-hoc, but helped with booking bands, and gave something to work with. We had a project called ‘Community of Independents’ [a kind of video graphed collective all working around music] with different streams to it that led to a documentary called A Joyful Slog, about DIY music in Dublin, alongside a studio show.”
“There were live performances, but we always felt like the audience came first at those. With the studio sessions, we didn’t have to hide the cameras, and we’d have someone separate on the audio.”
“We did them for bands we liked, and they became really fun to do. We were turning videos around fast, making simple recordings and watching bands play. What made it more special was access to their practice space. We had one or two failed attempts, but when it came together, there was something ritualistic about it – seeing bands, where they hang out, write, and produce their music. They’re most comfortable there, and we’d always know the bands. Ireland is small.“
“We’d have a few beers, relax, and then do it, but you also have to think about the commercial aspect. I went from hanging out with bands to cracking DSLRs to extend their recording time. It was a cheap way of getting a nice image, and it created this unique aesthetic, minimalist, up close and unobtrusive.”
The end result is raw and simply, low-tech, but far superior in its aesthetic and sound to a direct live video.
Displaying live music in the form of beautiful footage, clearly, is an art, and one that goes beyond a standard ‘live’ set up. After all, in an era where everyone has a smartphone and only a few artists prevent its use at live concerts, quality and access are everything.
With the right access, and the right set up, what we’re left with is the essence of an artist and their music.
