There was a time, not too long ago, I would've jumped at every oportunity to see Haley. This was almost the case with going to see her in Scottsdale, as it was the first of her radio tour shows announced. I started looking up airfair, hotels etc to AZ
Shortly after the AZ announcement, to my delight, they announced that she would be opening for the Band Perry in Portland... that's Portland, Oregon...in the actual Northwest! Every other time I've talked to Haley, I've 'joked' w/ her that she needs to do a show in Washington State, do me a solid, so I wouldn't have to fly everywhere to see her perform. Portland was the closest she's come to Seattle since the very first time I ever saw Haley perform live almost four years ago, when I made the drive to Spokane to see her when I won tickets by KCDA.
AZ and Oregon shows were back to back, the 19th & 20th....so obviously, I need to make both shows right?
I began thinking about the logistics of how to make this work: I would fly in to AZ Friday morning, see her in Scottsdale, after the show, take a late night flight to Portland, rent a car, drive to Revolution Hall, see her, then drive back up North to Washinton State....
As crazy as that sounded , the 'old' me from a few years ago, would have done it...
This time, I took a step back... we had very little information as to what to expect for these shows. I'd been to the KCDA 'radio show'... would AZ be the same? a quick 3 song set? Was I willing to spend the money to fly into AZ, rent a room, rent a car and stress myself out to make the show the next day in Oregon? It felt more like an endurance test rather than going to shows to enjoy seeing Haley sing.... I might be too tired after Oregon to make the drive back to Washington after a flight from AZ. That would mean more money to get another hotel room, just to be safe....it started to dawn on me, that this, even though logistically possible, was a fairly ridiculous and 'not fun' plan...
The "Old Tusk" would've probably done it. After four years, and alot of money traveling all over the US as well as the UK (I don't want to even think how much
) Today's Tusk is a little bit 'wiser'... I could do this,but how 'fun' would it actually be?
Let's back track a little bit. As you know, I've been doing marathon sessions of posting PMJ videos thanks to the generosity of "TeamHaleyFans" Lyca, Ken, ISCAT and airhigh.... there was a down side, as much as I enjoy and appreciate the 'work', my main and initial motivation, what drives me to be where I am in respect to Haley and being an #OGHalien is Haley. As much as I enjoy many of the performers of PMJ, as much as I appreciate the content provided, helping me grow my channel and subscribers, it is and has always been about Haley. It's the passion that Haley inspires in me that gives me the joy, anticipation and satisfaction of working and posting videos of Haley.
The volume of videos I was putting out, though much appreciated, was starting to wear on me... how many videos of "Burn" , "All About That Bass" "No Diggity" "My Heart Will Go On" do I need to post? I kind of felt an obligation to put out content as the impact of my channel from the numbers kept me motivated to continue putting out content.
Then there's the good side, doing the volume of videos, I learned my software better. Having to adjust my editing to each person's videos, the quality, types of cameras they used, I could not edit each video the same way. I also began to think about the audio presentation. Up to even over year ago, I would just work on making the video 'look' better, then use the audio that came w/ the performance, untouched.
Having multiple sources with different circumstances forced me to work as much as I can, on trying to improve audio, something I was completely unfamiliar with, but it needed to be done, each video submitted offered different audio challenges. Ther first two years of my channel, I averaged around 300K views a year. Since Haley joined PMJ, since "Creep" Happened, that changed... In 2015 there were over 2 million views to my channel... the pressure was on...
I have always told Haley that I would never post something that would be embarrassing to her. If it couldn't be fixed, especially the audio, I wouldn't post it. The most recent time I told her that was Laguna Beach. Haley arrived late because of traffic. She had time to practice one song w/ Dave Damiani's band. If the traffic and arriving late wasn't bad enough, no rehearsal made it much worse. You could tell Haley was concerned. I walked up to Haley and told her. "Look, if this doesn't go well, I'll make up some excuse as to why I couldn't get video" she smiled and thanked me. After the show, I told her how awesome she was.. she replied, 'well I don't know..." I said, "come on, you got a standing ovation, but if you don't think it was good, I won't post it"... she considered what I said, smiled and said 'go ahead'..."At Last" from Laguna beach is rapidly approaching half a milion views
Audio is important
A big consideration, as far as 'quality' of video, is the cameras I was using to video the shows. My phone camera is a joke, no way would most venues allow my camcorder or DSLR in. Haley's profile was getting bigger, the intimate, Room 5 shows will probably be fewer. If I was to continue to be able to video shows, I couldn't continue w/ the equipment I had. As much as I've spent the last couple years on equipment (on top of travel expenses) I had to really think about future shows, they would get bigger, more security. What I had would not do.
Recently, I had been working on and posting ISCATS videos from Vegas (and Austin)... the audio was good enough, minimal distortion that I could enhance it w/ little effort. What was especially noticeable was how well it took zooming in, barely losing focus. The video was 'above average'. Ken's video was also great, but I believe he told me the price of it, more expensive than I was willing to spend. It was a 'bigger' camera than a 'point & shoot' so there's still a fair posibility of it not being allowed. Because of the Vegas vids I asked ISCAT what he used. He told me, actually, I helped him make the choice of cameras. If you recall, there's a video of Creep shot from the balcony w/ great close ups. I had asked them what camera they used. That was the one ISCAT bought.
By now, I'd decided that I've seen more than my fair share of shows, there was no reason to 'kill' myself to see a show. Doing both AZ and Portland would be expensive and I wouldn't be able to enjoy either shows because of the travel and expense involved as well as the fatigue factor. As badly as I wanted to see Haley in AZ, I forced myself to just be happy that the Portland show was just a 3 hour drive away, no Airports, no Hotels, no 'convenience fees'
To be continued.. got some stuff to take care of
