Loney, Dear: Ukulele Session
March 8th, 2009 | Published in Ukulele Sessions
Brooklyn, New York - I left my apartment and 2 subways later I was at the doors of Union Hall, a small venue in Brooklyn (Park Slope). I went downstairs looking after their tour manager but I ended up talking to the band directly. Emil, the singer, wanted to chill out a little bit before doing it so we went upstairs and sat down, he introduced me to the other members who were enjoying some nice burgers.
Two Belgian beers later we decided to do it outside of the venue. We asked the managed of the venue who showed us the “smoking area”, he turned on the lights and we were ready to shoot one of the best ukulele sessions of humankind’s history.
Emil at the uke, accompanied by two guitars: a delicious mix of flavors, fighting the terrible cold of this cold Brooklyn Night.
The two songs over, Emil said “this is definitely the cutest thing we’ve done so far” and we came back inside and got another beer to warm ourselves up.
It’s only when the concert started that I realized there was no sound on the tape, for some reason the microphone was shut and did not record any sound. I almost had a panic attack in the middle of the crowd, many thanks to the beers who kept me alive!
I ran up to Emil as soon as the (wonderful) set was over and told him what happened. He looked at me and said “let me get drunk first, and then maybe we’ll do it later”. I started to panic again, just thinking about the wonderful ukulele session I had just done and knowing that it might have disappeared forever just made me nauseous. I started to think about Le Soir, our client, whom editor Cedric Petit would probably have killed me (Cedric is a huge fan of Loney, Dear).
A LOT of beers later, Emil and the other fellahs were ready to go up and fight the cold again. This time the bassist and drum player would come along, sing and play the “plastic bag”, a wonderful instrument invented for the occasion.
Guess what? The ukulele session was better than the one we did earlier, it felt like a magic wave had shaken the whole neighborhood, I didn’t mind the cold, I didn’t mind if my hands felt like they had shrunk; time had stopped, we were in an impasse filled with beauty which would have given the chills to anyone, even the less hearted person on earth (even GWB!!).
And that was it. I didn’t even realize it had started and it was already over. I wish it had lasted forever, but all things have an end: that’s why we invented the video recorder!
I watched the footage on my way back to my apartment, and two subways later I was uploading the whole thing on my computer.
I hope you enjoy it too!
Noahm.