Jamiroquai recently broke several world records when they
performed a gig on a plane to Greece. Sound engineer Rick Pope chose a
Focusrite Saffire PRO to
record this most unusual and historic of
performances.
Focusrite’s
Saffire has proved its worth yet again,
this time in what can only be described as one of its more unusual
outings, 35,000 feet in the air. Rick Pope, Jamiroquai’s
long-time sound engineer, used the Saffire to record a one off,
record-breaking performance by the band in the front of a plane on a
trip to Greece.
A specially selected audience mostly comprised of
competition-winning Jamiroquai fans witnessed the ‘Gig In The
Sky’ and the band performed half a dozen tracks. Pope takes
up the story;
“We had a full band, six musicians and three backing
singers. They only took out two rows or three rows of seats for us. It
was basically where you come in through the main door and we had a 10
and a half by nine and a half foot square to set up in!”
“I needed to record the gig and needed something
standalone and FireWire because it was all done on batteries as
obviously there was no mains in the plane. So I needed something that
would power off FireWire from my computer and the Saffire PRO 26i/o was
the first thing that came to mind. I’d heard some of the
stuff done on a Saffire so I thought I’d give it a go. Even
compared to Pro Tools HD it performed really well.”
“It was simple once it was up and running: stand
alone, just hit record, go and that was it. It did everything I wanted
it to do and was ideal for the gig because everything had to be scaled
down. I had a really tiny desk that you could rest on your lap, a
laptop and this little 1U bit of kit which was compact, small and
sonically sounded great.”
Pope reveals there are no plans for further mile high gigs and
that at least three world records is enough for now…
“Someone said it was five world records but all I
know is that it was the highest gig in the world, the longest distance
traveled during a gig and the fastest gig in the world!”
“We had a bit of turbulence and everyone had to sit
down (otherwise no one would have been able to see) but I think people
enjoyed it. Yeah, I think it went pretty well for a gig on a
plane!”