The Waxfire Live; Fever, Frisco & Workin’ Free
This last week has been an interesting one…after Mexico I got sick with something crazy. And probably not Mexican. It was one of the gnarliest flu bugs I’ve gotten in a while, and thinking about it – the last time I had the shakes, cold sweats, and hot flashes was when I went to San Francisco to film The Last of the Blacksmiths and The Waxfire.
The day before I was to fly up to San Francisco to film the show at the 12 Galaxies I got sick…really sick. Fever, sweat, multiple sheets and blankets a night. I had a nurse, but that didn’t make me get any better…just feel a little better.
The tickets were bought, Angel was flying in from Ohio, the date was set – there really wasn’t much to do besides get on the place and go.
So go I did. We got to the venue with plenty of time…Angel worked on the lighting and I headed out to find a place that could get me some hot water. I needed to mix my Thera-Flu™. Thinking about it now…the bar should have had hot water, but either I wasn’t thinking clearly enough, or they didn’t. One way or another I was soon wandering around the Mission District in San Francisco looking for a coffee shop.
Seattle this ain’t. It took me a while to find a place…soon some much need relief was coming my way. But a little apple flavored drink wasn’t enough for what my body was fighting.
I got back and set up our 3rd camera on the balcony w/ one of the band’s friends. (I contacted him to get some photos…he’s a photographer and took shots, he’s looking now) Angel and I were in the midst of setting up the cameras when the Waxfire started playing. No “are you guys ready?” or “we’re starting in 2 minutes.” They just went right into it. We didn’t even have our cameras on tripods.
Combine this with my fever kicking into full steam and I was sweating like crazy. Any communication between Angel and I was going to have to wait until the next set since our walkie-talkie’s didn’t get loud enough to go over the sound of the band. The we were reduced to communicating in pantomime and half-heard sentences over the radio.
We talked while the bands switched over and I think that or communication and coverage was better with the 2nd band, but it didn’t really matter.
Part of the reason we decided to film this concert was that the show was going to be recorded on 8 track with good microphones. In fact, The Last of The Blacksmiths ASKED me to come and film the show for this reason. They would mix the recordings, deliver them to me and I would cut the show to the nice clean audio.
The problem was…I only got the mixed tracks for The Waxfire. There was some small problem with the Blacksmith’s recording and more importantly they didn’t really like their performance. So they never mixed the music and never gave me the tracks. So a production that they requested, I funded and spent the time filming, was never going to be finished. I guess that’s what happens when you do spec work without contracts.
In their defense, the Waxfire mix sounds really nice.
But it would have been nice to finish the whole show.
Hope you enjoy the track… watch it here.
-Luke
