Spoon’s First Ever Performance…

…of their cover of Paul Simon’s Peace Like A River.

Credits

Jon Salvia ……………………… Camera Producer

Chris Hartman ………………. Sound

Peter Salvia …………………… Camera Cuts Color

Tory Salvia ……………………. Sage Advice

This is the first public posting of Spoon’s performance at 103 WRNR’s Private Artist Showcase back on 23 October 2007. This video also represents the first production my brother, Jon Salvia, and I worked on together professionally.Jon came to me two weeks prior to this performance, tells me “Spoon’s coming to Annapolis, we’re [103 WRNR] gonna have them do a Private Artist Showcase! This is gonna be huge!”

I was reluctant, to say the least, my knee jerk “…we don’t have a release” production mindset kicking in. “We need them to sign a release, we need a release from the record company, we need a note from their parents to let them ride on the bus…” I threw everything plus the kitchen sink at Jon. He would have none of it. And 103WRNR would take care of everything.

Having just finished a whirlwind tour of Boston and then Santa Monica to complete my Final Cut Pro 6 and Motion 3 training certifications from Apple, I woke up a bit jet lagged, swung by Mom & Dad’s, Dad faithfully handed me his PD150 (fully charged overnight) and I headed to the Ram’s Head on West Street.First time shooting there and I walk through the door and see Chris Hartman working house sound. I played baseball with Chris back in High School, and we pick up where we must’ve left off on the field and get to lighting the stage. Chris also brought his GL2 and is happy enough to lend it to the production camera for the wide lock down.

I make sure all three cameras (PD150, GL2, and HV20 which recorded HDV in 24f cinematic mode) are set to anamorphic. Then I scout the layout and figure out positions for me and Jon to get good shots and be least intrusive for the audience. Mid set up, Dad swung by with an extra tape for Chris’s camera that we hadn’t expected to be there (thanks again Dad!).

Jon’s HV20 was set to auto focus, camera stabilization on, and auto exposure. Set the PD150 to full manual and set zebras to 90. Set focus on the GL2 and locked it down wide and set it to record. People had started filtering in and were already ordering their lunches (Private Artist Showcases are usually midweek noonish). Somewhere in there Jon reminds me that Spoon was on The Late Show or something the night before. “This is gonna be HUGE. Things are coming together I can FEEL it.”

“Ok, Jon. Just hold the camera steady and DON’T ZOOM,” I said. I knew he would zoom regardless, I just wanted to minimize it so we’d have a consistent, medium hand held shot to cut to. And it was our first pro gig so lets just keep it simple, stupid.”

Just make sure you start the cameras before they come on and don’t stop recording no matter what. We’re on TV all the time,” I remember telling Jon, as we say in the biz.

5 minutes later Spoon takes the stage, 28 minutes later we’re with Alex Cortright shooting the post performance interview (soon to come), and two days later I was instructing at Michael Rosenblum’s filmmaking class at Discovery’s headquarters in Silver Spring, MD. I took a cut of The Underdog with me back to Santa Monica in November for the Color T3. Found out there’s a few gotchas sending multiclip sequences to Color and ended up accidentally deleting the media I had intended to use for my presentation at the end of the seminar.

So the above video, maybe you’re still listening to it now, takes me back. It reminds me of that first wild twinkle in Jon’s eye, his words “Spoon’s coming to town,” and how that started all this crazy live indie music moonlighting we’ve been doing these last four and a half months. Josh Ritter, Spoon, the Bird and the Bee (coming soon), Rilo Kiley, Mike Doughty, George Stanford, Jose Gonzalez, Alice Smith…

…and there’s going to be a lot more to come. Check back soon for our cut of The Underdog. And hey, if you’re an indie band out there and you dig our work, drop me a line.proactively • peter

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