I AM MANDRAKE's Jupiter's Hollow Live Show - Dec 2014
Last week I showed you the music video which I put together for I AM MANDRAKE, the group in Vancouver with whom I sung with for a little over a year and a half as a featured singer. Well, after doing that video we got back into live show mode, and started putting together the next big one!
Practice Practice Practice
Jerome managed to book the same venue that we performed in for Runway Jubilee, and since the date we got was going to be close to Christmas we figured we'd make it as wintery and sparkly as possible. Similarly to the first show, he coordinated the whole band, extra acts and makeup/hair artists as well as the sound engineer, and I took over the video aspect. Jerome also managed to get a puppetry troupe to join us for a muppet-style piece, which made me crazy happy!
Then it came down to practice - of which there was a lot. We really wanted this show to be bigger and more epic than the last one, so making sure we were all on the same page with the other performers was imperative.
On With The Show!
After months of prep and coordination, we were totally ready. The big night was here. I got my videographers set up and plugged the audio into the main mixboard, and rocked it. Four costume changes, four dance troupes, two drag queens, and a whole concert later, we were pretty bloody exhausted.
Here are some of my favourite photos from the event:
I bought this dress specifically for this event and it's my favourite dress ever... :3
The opening troupe - including the lovely Smoke Noir Bellydance duo, who are the coolest ladies ever. Go check out some of their other work!
Jerome looked so fantastic in that jacket
surrounded by the Defiance Dance Crew
ready for a space battle in Jupiter's Hollow
The most iconic photo of us playing live ever.
and a runner up "iconic" photo
Video Woes...
The video on the other hand didn't go quite as well. The videographers did a fantastic job - the footage was gorgeous, and it cut together beautifully! But the audio engineer for whatever reason kept changing the volume on the master output to my audio recorder, and consequently about half of the show was unusably quiet. We were all pretty frustrated with this.
But we didn't let the footage go totally to waste - Jerome and Sohan had actually taken one of my solo songs and did a remix, with which we opened the show. So we decided to make some lemonade out of those lemons and made a live compilation video with footage from both live shows to that song. Here is the final result (edited by myself of course):
Unfortunately that was our last show and project together as a group - Jerome wanted to pursue alternate solo avenues, and I was gearing up to move to LA, so we parted ways. But I'm glad we made the things we did and I for one am really proud of everything that we accomplished. In fact, my time with this group will always be my barometer for how well people can work together!
Thanks again for checking out my posts, I sincerely hope you enjoyed it! Don't forget to upvote if you want to see more, new stuff, and also don't forget to leave me a comment - I love chatting with you all!
Judging by the video, that must have been one hell of a show!That would have been well worth seeing live!
I can see the Annie Lennox comparison, the tone in your voice is similar. Your voice is just crazy good! I think you could pull off musical theater with no problem, that's what this show reminds me of.
Thanks @amberyooper! I certainly hope it was well worth seeing, lol!! Seriously though, it was definitely one of the more epic things I've been a part of.
And thank you for the nice comments! I did a little bit of musical theater as a kid but never really ended up focusing on it. I'm actually terrible at memorizing lines - the music is easy, but scripted dialogue is brutal!
How in the world do you come up with this! This is some out of the world planning. The costumes, choreography, lighting... Must be a well known band to have something like this. Love your voice. Last time i listened to you i couldnt really point exactly where your voice would fit genre wise but i think the songs in the video really suit you. I dont want to say your voice here in the video reminds me slightly of a singer in a band i listened to in highschool, but i think you probably know which one im talking about. 😁
Well Jerome really deserves the credit for the ideas and visuals on the show - this was his project 100% and I really was just tagging along and helping out where I could (graphics, video, etc..). But yeah, he was really a master coordinator and fearlessly took advantage of his contacts throughout the city.
And omg tell me about it! I actually have a lot of trouble finding other people to work with because my voice is so heavy and different than your typical female voice. Ultimately I end up just doing what I do... ha!
But so far metal, some bluesy based pop, and classical have been the spots where I have had the most luck - though I don't have any recordings of me doing any classical pieces... I really should change that this year. (if you want a soloist to collaborate on a recording with....?)
..ok lets see if I can guess this band... Evanescence? I've been compared to Amy Lee quite a bit actually. She's a pretty great singer so I'm not offended! I've also gotten Alison Moyet and Annie Lennox comparisons quite a bit, which is more in line with where I try to take my solo stuff stylistically.
Sorry i couldn't make it and respond earlier. Was super busy finishing my last song.. Yeah i try not to tell singers who their voice remind me of because you never know that reaction you'd get. haha.
Its really interesting what you guys do, im just left wondering, financially, can your concerts cover the cost of such fine detailed and planned set building. If i were a musician that could fill a hall like this, that would be something on my mind constantly. Or is this mostly enthusiasts in the bend voluntarily contributing time and skill to the project?
haha no worries! I understand about the vocal comparisons - we can be such divas sometimes. ;) I'm pretty hard to offend though, lol
To answer your question - I think we did manage to do a little better than break even on both of our big concerts in terms of hard costs (subcontracted videographers, sound guy, makeup/hair kit fees, props). But it's worth noting that most of the performers weren't paid as hired performers - Jerome did some bartering and I think one of the instrumentalists was actually paid, but most of the extra performers (dancers, drag queens, etc) were performing out of the goodness of their own heart or because they were friends of his who wanted to be a part of the show. So that saved us a whole lot of rehearsal and appearance costs.
All that said, we were all expecting to lose money quite honestly... we weren't known around town at all, really, it was a lot of hustle on our parts. But we wanted to enter with a bang, so we did our best to go all out with the resources and time that we had available and fortunately managed to come out with a pretty great production value, all things considered! There's something to be said about the "if you build it, they will come" mentality...
I love this! Your voice is fantastic, and the whole spectacle is visually as well as musically pleasing. I love the acrobatics too. Sad that it was your last show!
Thank you so much for watching!
I know! We had a good roll going - who knows we may connect again one day :)
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hooray!! Thank you :D