KATIE MELUA — Katie Interview: The Gig On The Rig | Extras | Katie Melua - Concert Under the Sea

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03/11/2023

KATIE MELUA — Katie Interview: The Gig On The Rig | Extras | Katie Melua - Concert Under the Sea
Artist: Katie Melua

Katie Melua - Concert Under the Sea
Album: The Documentary Film - Concert Under The Sea
Release date: May 27, 2007
Label: Dramatico
Contributor: Katie Melua
Format: PAL, Import, Cinemascope
Languag: English
Label: Dramatico - DRAMDVD0004
Director Of Photography: John Christian Rosenlund Fnf
Executive Producer: Odd Arvid Stromstad
Film Director: Erik Poppe
Producer: Stine Ore
Producer: Odd Arvid Stromstad
NRK © 2006
Dinamo Story
DRAMATICO

Run time: 7:31

Catégorie

🎵

Musique

Transcription

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00:00 There was a Norwegian TV programme that wanted to film a gig of mine.

00:09 And they suggested it in a very strange location,

00:12 which was they said there might be a possibility of filming it at the bottom of a gas rig.

00:17 And it sounded so, so like crazy and completely ridiculous.

00:23 But I wanted to kind of look into it,

00:25 because it did sound like it was right up my street as far as unusualness of it goes.

00:31 The platform manager of the gas rig was I think the one that

00:35 wanted someone to perform down there because he was a musician.

00:38 And apparently when he had first gone down in the shaft,

00:41 he had heard the acoustics in the room,

00:44 and the acoustics were probably one of the most incredible acoustics I've ever played in.

00:49 It was his sort of idea, and then he teamed up with the TV programme,

00:52 and that's when they approached me.

00:54 So when I landed, I got to meet him, and I got told the story,

00:59 and that was pretty incredible too.

01:01 One of the first things I wanted to check, of course,

01:03 was that the gas company itself was as environmentally friendly as possible.

01:07 And luckily it was.

01:09 I think it had won the Environmental Award three years in a row,

01:12 which was really important.

01:14 And yes, so when we actually came to doing it,

01:16 I didn't realise how much was going to go into it,

01:18 all the training, all the medical check-ups that I had to do and the band had to do,

01:27 and it turned into this whole thing.

01:29 It looks very scary, it's not.

01:32 And we had Tim Harris on bass, Henry Spinetti on drums,

01:36 and Jim Watson on the piano, and I think all of them were a bit surprised,

01:40 but they were all so amazing about it all.

01:43 None of them complained.

01:46 We had to practise escaping from a submerged helicopter.

01:50 So that was done in a pool, and we were lowered in this kind of fake helicopter

01:57 into the pool, and then it was turned around,

02:01 and we had to get ourselves out upside down under the water.

02:05 And it was pretty good. I mean, all the guys, they were really good at it.

02:11 You had to wear these horrendous, huge, orange lifeguard suits

02:16 that basically made you look like you were Kenny from South Park.

02:19 Is my hood on?

02:21 Oh, that's a bit weird, isn't it?

02:23 I mean, it was a bit difficult, but we had about five goes,

02:28 and by the end of it, we could all do it.

02:30 We did get quite scared because we had to practise this lifeboat launch,

02:38 which was 30 metres above the sea.

02:40 And when I say lifeboat, it was actually something that looked like a submarine,

02:44 a metallic submarine.

02:46 To me, I kind of looked at it as another rollercoaster,

02:51 but the inside of it was very metallic and very steel-like,

02:54 and I did feel a little bit like Ripley out of Aliens,

02:57 because it was all so kind of modern, but also steely and very cold, in a sense.

03:03 And you were crammed in, like, you know, completely sitting on this tiny, tiny seat

03:08 in your huge, fat, orange suit.

03:10 As soon as you see a red light, we start pumping out the boat.

03:13 You know, if anyone's claustrophobic, I definitely wouldn't recommend it.

03:17 And it basically got dropped 30 metres from the sea, and it was so incredible.

03:29 It lasted for about ten seconds, but it seemed to, like, last forever,

03:32 because you got to experience zero gravity, which is pretty amazing.

03:35 [Screams]

03:37 The helicopter ride was incredible, and it was brilliant,

03:44 because you're sort of going along, and there's just sea all around you,

03:48 you can't see anything.

03:49 I mean, I think it was something like a half-an-hour ride from the coast of Norway.

03:53 So you can't really see anything apart from the sea just below you,

03:56 and then suddenly you see this, like, small little island that is the gas rig.

04:01 You know, you sort of don't really know what to expect,

04:03 and I didn't really know what the actual leg was going to be like,

04:07 and I didn't know whether, you know, singing that far down,

04:12 you know, whether there was going to be pressure in terms of air pressure

04:16 or difficulty of breathing or singing

04:18 and how that would affect the acoustics and your own performance.

04:21 So all of that was kind of going through my head as I landed on the gas rig,

04:25 and I could see the band were looking a bit worried.

04:28 What was amazing about the actual platform was that it's an island,

04:32 where people work and live for, like, weeks at a time,

04:37 and they kind of had everything, really.

04:39 I mean, they weren't--you know, the workers, they had their own cabins,

04:43 they had, like, a little gym, and they had a lovely cafeteria where we ate a lot.

04:48 It was strange because everything on the platform was very high-tech

04:53 and very sort of modern, and you felt very safe,

04:55 but the lift was literally this old, rickety, metallic box

05:00 that was quite small, and every time, because it took so long,

05:03 about ten of us would pile into it so that we'd get down.

05:06 And it did this slightly scary thing, which was every time it started to move,

05:11 it would jump a little bit.

05:13 And I remember the first time we did it, like, literally everyone screamed

05:16 because we all thought we were going to fall.

05:18 [loud crash]

05:19 And then when we got to the bottom, it was this huge cylinder of a room

05:25 that just really looked like any other room,

05:27 but until you looked up and couldn't see the ceiling

05:30 because it went on for, you know, miles and miles.

05:33 It was amazing.

05:34 Look at this.

05:37 Really, it was a pretty safe environment

05:39 because people worked down there all the time.

05:41 But there was definitely precautions that you had to take,

05:43 and, you know, if you didn't follow those precautions,

05:45 then the environment could have been pretty dangerous.

05:48 [applause]

05:50 A platform worker had to stay close to any camera that was there

05:56 that was being used because something like the flash could have ignited.

06:01 If there was a leak anywhere, a flash could have ignited.

06:03 ♪ Kiss by kiss will leave my mind ♪

06:08 ♪ One at a time, one at a time ♪

06:14 The platform manager obviously got his dream of seeing an artist there,

06:19 and I did talk to him about whether he was going to make it a regular thing

06:22 and have bands there, like, every month doing gigs.

06:26 But he said he wasn't sure because it was so much work to organise everything.

06:32 [applause]

06:34 It was really amazing when I--you know, as I was leaving

06:38 because I kind of saw it all from--as I was leaving from behind and looking at it.

06:44 It was also interesting because I did wonder whether it would be there,

06:47 say, in 100 years' time, you know, whether the gas reserves would run out.

06:51 You know, because of the use of energy that we have in the modern world.

06:56 But--so because of that, I kind of felt--I felt good at having visited it

07:02 and having experienced something that really no one else has.

07:06 ♪ I cried for you when the sky cried for you ♪

07:13 The most magical moment of it was when I started singing.

07:16 The acoustics were incredible. It was so unusual.

07:20 And it was just a very interesting gig to do.

07:25 I think it would be amazing if someone recorded an album there.

07:28 It could sound pretty cool.

07:30 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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