They’ve been teasing it for over a month, but the unlocking is on the horizon: a special one-off concert performance, professionally captured in audio and video, by three bands at the peak of their powers: Letting Up Despite Great Faults, Blushing, and EEP, performing live at Love Buzz in El Paso, Texas on April 28, 2022. The full concert will have its YouTube live premiere on the EEP YouTube channel on Saturday, September 17, 2022 at 12pm Pacific/3pm Eastern/8pm UK. Subscribe and join the “live” community event sharing at this link: this link Much like the old DreamGaze Worldwide performances on the DKFM Facebook channel, this is an opportunity for all manner of folks to join in a virtual communal experience at a previously recorded live show, helping to build community and camraderie, as fans and friends view these expertly-captured performances.
For us, and helping us to shout about what’s accomplished here, they built a teaser trailer, capturing the energy, joy, and enthusiasm these great bands bring to the table. If these 90 seconds don’t whet your appetite, we don’t know what will.
We chatted with Rosie Varela of EEP about how this all came together, at this level of professionalism.
DKFM: Not to inject useless hyperbole that really isn’t needed here, but… this is a big deal. Pro video, pro audio, post-processing, and three amazing performances by bands at the top of their game. How on earth did you stitch this together, make the bill happen, and get buy-in on a permanent audio/video recording from all involved?
Rosie: When Blushing approached us about playing a show at Love Buzz, the partners in Hogar Records (Myself, Ross Ingram, Justin Oser, and Sebastian Estrada) brainstormed about how we might try to share the performance with the worldwide Shoegaze community.
Because of my health issues and high risk for Covid, we had to cancel our trip to SXSW and a Texas tour, and it is still uncertain when we’ll tour again.
Our bandmates Serge Carrasco and Lawrence Brown III got on board with the idea and we began rehearsing.
We talked to the other bands and everyone was on board, the venue was on board, and Justin Oser (my husband and EEP’s manager/Hogar Records managing partner) sprung into action and really took on the role of producer for the video.
Ross reached out to DoubleScope Films here in El Paso and our mastering engineer Charlie Vela (who lives in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas) and Justin, the audio/video team, and the venue coordinated the multi-camera production. In every aspect, both DoubleScope and Charlie were amazing to work with.
DKFM: It might have been an aesthetic choice, but… one thing that doesn’t change is the lighting. Everybody is consistent, visible, ultimately on a level playing field. Was that a conscious decision made in advance, or a happy accident?
The video team did prior blocking and lighting planning with the venue – they went above and beyond in their pre- and post-production and the lighting and multi-camera choices they made in editing really created a video that made you feel as if you were there for the performance!
DKFM: Sound is on point. It’s one thing to get a multi-camera setup, but this is a sonic document par excellence. Talk about the team that put the audio AND video together.
Rosie: Charlie Vela (our mastering engineer) is a professional live audio engineer and the final recording really shows it! We were so grateful that he was willing to travel to us and engineer it.
It was a great night of connecting with our fans, and with Blushing and Letting Up!
DKFM: EEP has performed live… bloody rarely, right? Is that one of the main reasons you wanted to make this happen, to get a more permanent document of this lineup, spinning through the songs that have made you beloved amongst fans of the genre?
Rosie: Our fans are our friends – family, really. Because we haven’t been able to tour, we wanted to give something back as a thank you for their generosity and kindness to us. I know the members of Blushing and Letting Up Despite Great Faults also love their fans, and so it was a win-win for everyone to do this.
DKFM: It’s a huge deal that you put this together, in and of itself. Are there any plans beyond this, to present and promote similar bills, perhaps in tandem with a forthcoming EEP album? Or was this enough to cause you all significant hair loss? It looks so effortless as to have been simple, but you just know how much work went into making it appear effortless.
Rosie: We’re very fortunate that we work with our music company Tinderbox, who helped us with YouTube campaigns, and Justin is really great at managing projects like this. And of course DoubleScope’s and Charlie’s professionalism did make it a really great experience. No one lost any hair!
EEP’s live performances moving forward will be on hold for about a year as some of us are in different cities temporarily. So we’ll be focusing on producing EEP albums until then!
We do hope there is an opportunity to do another video concert someday – it would be amazing to do it again!
We would highly recommend subscribing to the “live unlock” of this concert performance, so that you’ll get a notification to join the community when it unleashes to the world. You can chat live with other fans and friends enjoying the same communal experience, at a time appropriate for nearly all international audiences. Having caught the sneak preview, it really is a joy to behold. Our highest recommendation.
Follow EEP on Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Spotify, Facebook and Bandcamp. And enjoy a great show!
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