You witnessed it - we had to cancel our ongoing 'Im Fadenkreuz' tour right in the middle of it! F*** corona... but we were glad most of you reacted so supportive and with a lot of understanding! Especially those of you who had traveled from far away were pretty unlucky. There were UK fans; Skandinavians as well as fans from Switzerland... and we felt really, really sorry for you! In fact we felt so unhappy that we spontaneously decided to move ahead quickly and start this mysterious project called 'live stream'....
We began with driving home straight from the canceled Cologne show where the decision was first made to interrupt the tour. Parked our van at the workshop and unloaded everything, then started setting up an improvised kind of 'stage' in our workshop. Not only had we never done a live stream before, we also had basically no idea at all what kind of equipment we'd need, how to integrate multiple cameras with the sound from the live mixing desk etc etc... oh my. Our live crew were on their phones all morning and googled the heck out of their laptops... and guess what: That amazing crew managed to not only organize all the streaming gear adn gadgets we'd need, but crash-coursed themselves right into the neccessary streaming apps as well... until finally, around 6pm CET, we managed to have some kind of dress rehearsal! All of the crew had multiple jobs to do simultaneously - in contrast to regular shows, where there is one man for every job. We tested the stream quality, tried this and adjusted that... and decided to give it a go!
So, finally at around 6pm, we did a first little live stream, announcing the live show for 8pm CET the same night ! (Watch below)
Nobody was able to predict if it all would work out in the end -being live, non-stop, for more than two hours or so- but we all decided collectively it was absolutely worth trying! Streaming a Heldmaschine live show from a workshop facility where usually backdrops are being bulit, stage lights are being designed and trailers are being repaired...
Word about the upcoming live stream spread like wildfire... thanks to you guys! And waddaya know - the live streamed show started right on time! And man... were we nervous !! Which is really weird considering there was NO audience .. at all. But the excitement knowing what was about to happen was massive - for all of us! We already had of course Tom and Simone come over from the Heldmaschine office in the morning to do the cameras, and Mel was flown in last minute as well to switch the live cams. Sadly, as all of us were really more than busy with the entire show, so there was no one left to take care of the live chat... but hey - the fans did amazingly well in there all by themselves, and as we could check back a few days later, you guys obviously had tons of fun doing it, too... WOOOHOOO :)))
And, wow: Up to 1300 of you were live online watching the livestream. Between songs, our crew would shout over to us that the stream was running fine, how many of you were rocking with us out there and so on. But of course we could not SEE anything from our improvised stage... what a weird and crazy ride. Still, somehow we had the feeling you guys were out there... somewhere. Really that's how it felt!! Thus... we rocked for more than two hours, including surprise guest features and whatnot... it certainly was great fun doing it!!
Thanks again to our a-ma-zing live crew: Nicolo, Markus, Ben, Tom, Simone and Mel for this super successful, out of thin air live stream! And, most of all, to YOU out there! For all your great parties at home, on the tablets, on your TVs, on your computers, most of you all dressed up in your finest HM merch - it was SO AWESOME to check out all the pictures and videos of you guys ROCKING at home !!! We love you! Stay home, stay healthy... und es geht WEITER!
#WeAreInThisTogether
#WeGetThroughThisTogether