Last week I was out in San Diego and Anaheim doing rehearsal shows for Marco Antonio Solis. My priority to this gig is to board operate for their upcoming U.S. tour starting in a few weeks. This gig is challenging yet fun at the same time. Where I have been used to doing rock and brass band gigs I find myself lighting more ballad and salsa tunes this time around. Not only has the music switched gear, but the language has too! All of the lyrics are in Spanish which is a new challenge, but it’s a good thing I know a bit of the language. One important thing for me to do is listening to the lyrics closely to associate color schemes with what is being said in the song. So interpreting what the writer is trying to say in his lyrics is a big part of lighting the show. If you’re not an expert at a foreign language you can take the words and throw them into an online translator named Babelfish. It can’t necessarily put it all in perfect English grammar for you but enough to get the point.
Visit this website: http://babelfish.yahoo.com/translate_txt
As far as music goes… Well that’s the beauty of music, it is universal. No matter what language a song is written in, it will always have a verse, chorus, bridge, etc. for you to write the changes.
Most of July has been a preparation month for me learning all of the tunes, getting all my notes together, and programming practice. A cool thing to do is creating a mock setup of the gear being used (if you don’t have a nearby warehouse to rent the console). For instance, I own a Hog 500 and dimmer console I keep in my basement for local gigs here at home. The console I am using for the gig is a Hog iPC with a playback wing. So what I do is use the Hog 500 as my main iPC unit, then I take the dimmer console and use it as my wing. All you have to do is board tape and label them like you would for what you’ll use for the gig. After that just put the tunes on your iPod and practice getting you hand movements down cuing the show. Visualizers and PC version of the console serve a great purpose through your computer to view and edit the show, but I honestly feel you need to practice hands on situations to keep your chops tight as well. Here are a few pics from the shows rehearsal. I will post some more over the next month and keep you posted on how the shows come along.
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Portfolio Slideshow:
http://www.rockyou.com/show_my_gallery.php?source=ppsl&instanceid=63793856
Special thanks to Mike Ladesma for his guidance and taking a chance on me.
