Can you believe our last Down The Street night was over two months ago?! The Summer 2024 live events season has been busier than we could have imagined!
And while it’s been a wonderful experience, it clearly took us away from the time we require to thoughtfully produce a recap video and blog post of our reflections from our locals night at El Indio Botanas Y Cerveza. We handle our own post-production, editing video footage of the night, selecting B-roll shots, picking a song to feature from the artists’ set, and mixing the live audio. Lastly, we write this blog post to share some highlights from the night.
May’s Down The Street featured well-known Santa Ana transplant Rocky Angelini. Rocky’s admiration for Santa Ana is evident in his music videos and social media clips, performing in the streets around his Downtown neighborhood. He is a regular host and emcee of the Coollab Project, a collaborative creative arts night that takes place Thursday in the 4th Street Market patio and features an impressive house jazz band. Many Coollab Project regulars came out in big numbers to show their support for Rocky. Backed by an exquisite band, Rocky Angelini brought a high energy, joy-filled performance from the very first song. We’ve chosen to feature “I Don’t Worry About It”, a strong representation of Rocky’s ability to lay heartfelt lyrics over crowd pleasing rhythms. Crowd pleasing is an understatement really. Rocky’s audience was hyped from the start, matching his energy and singing lyrics right back to him. Morgan Delaney-Zamore and Santa Ana native DJ Daniel James also joined Rocky on the mic during this electric set.
The night’s opener, Natasha Mangali , was recommended to us by Rocky Angelini. We were in search of a “new to us” frontwoman and singer-songwriter Natasha was a perfect addition to the night. Our thanks to Rocky for putting us on to her. Natasha brought her soulful vocal prowess in English AND Tagalog. Her set included a beautiful shoutout to her grandmother and loved ones who bring her inspiration. We’ve selected Natasha’s closing number, “Kontrabida”, a rap melody produced by Natasha herself. A powerful declaration to end a set that displayed her vocal range, melodic softness, and ability to bring her audience on an emotional musical journey. We’re big fans of this bilingual songstress. Both of the night’s artists were backed by local musicians you’ll find on stage at a Coollab Project night, be sure to check it out!
Did we mention we’ve been doing a lot this summer? We weren’t the only ones! Since May’s Down The Street, our friends at Resident Vinyl have opened a SECOND location inside Contra Coffee & Tea at 115 N Orange St in Old Town Orange. You can find Owen there while the new location is in its infancy. Stop by and congratulate him, and hey buy a record while you’re there. From May’s Down The Street playlist curated by Resident Vinyl, we’re highlighting “YOU’RE THE ONE” by KAYTRANADA & Syd off of 99.9%. You can buy the record here from Resident Vinyl.
And where have we been all Summer? Building stages and running sound all over Southern California. Stanford Sound & Stage was fortunate to be asked back to the City of Los Alamitos Summer Concert Series with even more dates added this year. We also had the opportunity to work with the City of Colton on a concert in the park event and the city’s 137th birthday celebration where we provided a stage, audio set-up to reach an audience filing half a high school football stadium, sound engineering for a live band, and synching audio to a firework show finale. We felt some pressure but it was mainly our sincere pleasure to contribute to this important annual event for the residents of Colton. We were happy to be working back home in Santa Ana at times, including providing stage and audio for “Poderosas”, an event orchestrated by local artist, Alicia Rojas, to honor the men and women of Latino Health Access and recognize their vital contributions to Santa Ana in response to Covid pandemic. This event included the unveiling of artwork by Alicia located on the corner of Latino Health Access facing Ross St and 4th Street on the West end of Downtown Santa Ana. And most recently, we headed to Downtown San Diego to set up stage and audio for a rooftop daytime pool party organized by Preciosa Nights. Our thanks to the incredibly talented and intelligent duo DJ Gracy-D and TKeys for connecting us with Jay and Eden, the founders of this nationwide event.
Scattered in-between we contributed to a few more events such as truss, lighting, and lighting direction for a Shakesbeer in the park weekend, providing last minute audio setups for two events we were contracted for as stage vendors (planning events is a lot of work, we were happy to be able to quickly fulfill these last minute needs for our clients), and of course, we can be found every first Saturday at the Downtown Santa Ana Artwalk on the corner of 4th and French AND Artist Village 2nd St Promenade. Our Stanford Sound & Stage crew has been beyond amazing this summer with their dedication and input at each event. To say we’re proud of our team is putting it lightly. A valuable lesson we’ve learned this summer season–the importance of dedicating time not just to preparing and executing an event, but also allotting time for rest and reflection. These have been the busiest few months for our small business, and we are truly fortunate for these opportunities. It’s easy to get caught up in the action, but moments of proper rest allow us to appreciate all that has happened and center our minds to jot down beautiful moments like May’s Down The Street performance. This balance is indeed a work in progress for us.
That being said, Down The Street will return Thursday, August 29th, at El Indio Botanas y Cerveza, our gracious hosts. We’ve gone TOO long without some of Don Ramon’s cooking and these next bands you will not want to miss so SAVE THE DATE.
Our thanks again to Rocky, Natasha, the Coollab Project team, Resident Vinyl, and El Indio for collaborating with us on a wonderful night.
See you August 29th at El Indio for Down The Street #6
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