As I mentioned in yesterday’s blog, Marie Digby had a movie shoot at The Cat Club in West Hollywood, CA, and was looking for extras. I had the time to go do this, so I drove off to take advantage of this opportunity. We were suppose to have been there by 6:30PM, but traffic was heavier than I expected it to be, and I had this sinking feeling that I wasn’t going to make it, plus I wasn’t sure where I was going to park. I got there by 6:45PM and was expecting the worst already, but had a pleasant surprise. I made the correct call to park at this parking lot nearby, because the movie crew was apparently reimbursing everybody’s parking fee for showing up as an extra. But did I make it on time? Walking towards The Cat Club, I could already hear Marie singing “Symphony,” so I was thinking that I was too late. Turns out, she was just rehearsing. Got a seat inside and just relaxed.
There weren’t that many of us there, with probably about 20 extras, plus the movie crew, and the Cat Club is a decently small place so it felt cozy. Before the movie shoot started, we enjoyed listening to Marie rehearse, and she even played other songs to entertain us while we waited. At one point she was asking us for song suggestions, and for the song “Feel,” she had to learn it on an acoustic guitar on the spot, because she normally plays that on the piano. How talented is she? Very. I also enjoyed her casually talking to some of the other fans who were there, joking about stuff and what not.
The filming started at about 7PM, and if I remember correctly, they did seven takes total of Marie singing the song “Symphony.” Each of these takes covers a particular shot that they need to edit down to one final take, from close ups to long shots, to profile shots. About those profile shots… I would be very surprised if I was not shown in this movie, because the camera was pointed towards my side of the room A LOT. The only thing that goes against me, is that I was visibly mouthing off the words to the songs, and in context to this movie, I shouldn’t even know the words yet.
I did enjoy some of the in-between takes moments that Marie provided. In particular, she spontaneously did a sped up version of “Symphony” which was funny to hear. Afterward after another take, by popular demand, the audience wanted to hear that again. So she did that again, then she did a rap version, a spoken word version, attempted a rock version, and so on and so forth. It was really fun to hear that and I wish I actually got these “alternate versions” on video to share it with you guys. I know others there did capture that on video, so hopefully I’ll be able to experience that again somewhere online. (look, here is part of it : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXCClo6H0k0)
Once the movie shoot ended, we all had to sign a release form to authorize the use of our image for the movie. Marie mingled with the crowd and unlike her usual organized meet & greet, this was as randomly casual as it gets. There will be a person talking to her at one point, then she’ll turn her head and then there is another, then she’ll go back to the previous person she was already talking to, etc… I had a brief chat with her myself, took a picture, thanked her for her shows, and had to leave.
Next stop for me was to see “LIGHTS” at The Troubadour, which was just a few blocks away from where I was. I’ve never been there before, so once again I had to figure out the parking situation. I did notice that there was a regular neighborhood close by, so I tried to look for free city street parking. After maybe about 20 mins of going in circles, I gave up, and followed the signs to the designated parking lot for the venue. Got in the venue, and ended up standing by the side-rear wall, next to the exit. I was going to have to rely on using my camera’s “vari-view” LCD screen to get a good look over the people’s heads in front of me.
“Stars Of Track And Field” was the opening act, and while they sounded good, I wasn’t really feeling their music. “Lights” came out at about 10PM to the excitement of the crowd. With always a big lovely smile on her face, she is quite energetic, interacted with the crowd, and had a great stage presence. Her whole set sounded great, and I knew every one of her songs, plus she had extended intros and what not to them that was pretty cool. I also found it nice that the fans kept handing her gifts, like signs, drawings, a toy rocket ship, etc, which she would proudly display to the rest of the audience. Lights was really good, and I would love to see her again one of these days.
With all that said, honestly speaking here, while I enjoyed Lights’ show, my heart wasn’t really in the right place for this concert (can you tell by the lack of a write-up there?). This was after I had such a great experience with Marie earlier in the night too. Part of it was probably because I was at a pretty bad spot of the venue. Near the exit. What was I thinking? People walking by all the time, and some of the people around me just kept talking and talking, having a conversation, which was just so distracting. The way the venue speakers were situated, I got mostly the bass sound, and less of the vocals, which was quite unfortunate. Throughout the whole night, a guy next to me also kept asking me to save his spot, while he went off to get a beer, or water, or a restroom break. Towards the second half of Lights’ set, he didn’t even bother asking me to save his spot anymore when he took off AGAIN, and 10-15 minutes later when he gets back, he acts all disappointed with me because his spot was taken, and eventually storms off. Screw you jerk, you didn’t tell me you were coming back, and I’m not your servant.
To top it off, at the very end when Lights was doing her cover of Phil Collins’ “In The Air Tonight” for her encore song, a security guard shines his flashlight at me, and tells me to leave the venue! Apparently there is no video taping here at the Troubadour and the guy actually confiscates my memory card. I told him that this was the first time I’ve been there and didn’t know the rules, I mean one of the guys checked my camera in the beginning and said it was okay. It turns out that I should have looked up at the top of the door when I walked in, because it says “No recording! Open to confiscation with no compensation!” If you knew me in person, you would know that I would absolutely NOT have taken the risk of taking my camera in if I read that. So Light’s tour manager comes out and tells me that I wasn’t suppose to take video, told her I honestly didn’t know, and assured her that they will not be posted online at all (so sorry guys). So I thankfully got my SDCard back, but was not allowed to go back in the venue from that point on, and thankfully it was already the end of the show. Ironically I stood outside and joined in this conversation that the security guys were having about digital cameras. I was embarrassed of what happened, but at least nothing horrible came from it. Now that I think of it, the only reason I can think of on how I would have gotten caught is if somebody told on me… you know who that could possibly be? It was probably the “hold my spot” guy. If it really was him, well Double Screw You Bastard!
So there were some significant “highs” for the night, mostly involving Marie Digby, and some unfortunate “lows” at the end of the night. Over all, it was just quite an eventful and memorable day.
Check out my PHOTOS from the night…
- Marie Digby
- Stars of Track And Field
- Lights
* click here for the VIDEOS from the Marie Digby movie shoot *
P.S. And with the latest Marie Digby videos I just uploaded, I’ll have to say that this is probably it for this youtube channel of mine. I’ll let youtube decide when they want to kill this account. So who knows, it might still be up for many more years, months, weeks, or days to come. Thanks to all of you who have watched any of my videos. I really appreciate it. I’ll do a future update, with a link to where my future videos will be located. Gotta admit it, but looking for a good alternative to youtube has been kinda hard. You never know, I might just set up another youtube account anyway, or take back my word and continue uploading stuff to my current account until it’s completely suspended. Maybe I’ll just segregate my videos all over the internet, like only posting Marie Digby videos to the digbyholics facebook page or something… we’ll see… until then, Take Care.
