Jamiroquai and his band performed a gig on the artist’s private jet while en route to Greece. The band performed a half dozen tracks for a specially selected audience that was mostly comprised of fans who won a competition. Jamiroquai’s longtime engineer, Rick Pope, captured this performance using a Focusrite Saffire Pro 26i/o audio interface.
“We had six musicians and three backing singers,” Pope says. “They only took out two rows or three rows of seats for us [to set up]. It was basically where you come in through the main door.
Jamiroquai’s engineer, Rick Pope, with his portable recording rig on board the artist’s private jet
“I needed to record the gig and 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,” Pope continues. “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: 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.
“We had a bit of turbulence and everyone had to sit down, but I think people enjoyed it. Yeah, I think it went pretty well for a gig on a plane!”
Pope says that there are no plans for future mile-high gigs. “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!”
For more information, visit www.focusrite.com and www.jamiroquaimusic.com.
