I’ve already expressed why I haven’t missed gigging. In fact, I’ve since discovered the new medium of live recording, which has the potential of reaching a much larger audience, as well as providing that intimate, immediate buzz of the live stage.
This week, Harson Robkus are premiering our first live recording. An acoustic mini-gig of original songs dedicated to our home town of North Shields. In other words, music on our own terms, timescale and medium. It’s been a rewarding, liberating experience so far, and I’ll explain why…
Live Recording: Exposure
Live gigging is a one-off event attended by a limited audience. But publishing a live video performance onto the world wide web has so much more potential for exposure. The sky is the limit, which makes it even more exciting. Once the content is out there? Exposure is limited only by your own social media savvy and hard work.
Artistic Freedom
In this domain, there are no rules. No load-in time, no last orders, no audience requests. This is our own music, our passion and it’s delivered to our timescale. It’s a huge weight off the shoulders, it doesn’t feel like ‘work’ as sometimes a gigging band can.
Audience Interaction
Although not face to face, the possibilities for audience interaction are actually greater in the digital domain with live comments and discussion with the performers over a variety of channels. With the traditional live gig, things can get out of hand. Digitally, it’s always controlled.
Live Recording vs Live Streaming
Live recording has the advantage of quality if you don’t have the fast and stable connection that live streaming necessitates. In our case, we’ve used live streaming for rough impromptu audience engagement, but have recorded live gigs as there’s less pressure, and employed cameras at multiple angles and a dedicated mic (rather than just a phone) for much higher audio/visual quality.
Maintaining standards by capturing everything
What could be more frustrating than playing your best-ever gig and having no record of it? With live recording, your progress is documented to the second, and that can only make you better at what you do. With live-gigs, if there’s no record, you always have an excuse to fall short of the standards you set yourselves. With live recording? No hiding place, no excuses!
Conclusion
Live recording has not only replaced the buzz I used to get from gigging, it’s allowed me to express myself better musically, and given our music more potential and exposure. Constantly documenting our efforts has also improved our musical standards.