Harry Styles: Kiwi
Essie
"You were right.", Harry appeared at the top of the stairs that lead to the loft, "I'm sure I was, but about what specifically?".
"The tour? I just got off the phone with Jeff and he really tried everything to make the schedule work, but it just wasn't happening. So, I brought up your idea that we postpone further, until we're able to do it properly... the way we imagined it, you know.", Bono joined him on the small sofa, the only one that fit the loft space.
"I'm sorry it turned out this way, but it's better for everybody to wait a bit longer. Besides, it's not a year away... just a mere couple of months, I'm certain.", his face showed a good bit of relief, but it seemed like somebody dipped a paint brush in sorrow and splashed it right across the centre of his face.
"I know... It seems like a long time only because we've been waiting so long already. It's honestly not that big of a deal, but I'm the face that has to announce it and I'm dreading the response in advance.", we always knew that it wouldn't be the happiest of announcements, and I'm slightly relieved not to be the barer of bad news for once.
"We've come a long way since the dreadful month of March when shit hit the fan, as my mother would put it. Give it a bit of time and give your fans a bit of time to adjust to the newfound normal. It would be unrealistic to expect everybody to be okay with this, but they will come around eventually and figure out it's for all our sakes.", Harry nodded and Bono tried to climb in his lap, clearly not aware he wasn't a lap dog, "In the meantime, you can always do an online concert right here in the garden. We have the equipment and I'm sure it would be a nice consolation prize.".
"You have to be careful because Jeff will start to think you're trying to take his job away with all these incredible ideas. But you're right. I suppose we could pull off something of the sort."
"He's got nothing to worry about. Although, I must say that it does seem like we've all picked up some new skill during quarantine. I mean, I haven't spent 6 hours straight on TikTok in vain.", he picked up on my little jab and turned his head in my direction quite aggressively when he heard me mention TikTok.
"Hey! Just because you caught me on TikTok one time does not mean I spend all my time on that app!", Harry tried defending himself.
"Harry I didn't catch you on TikTok one time, I left you in bed to go walk the dog, do the shop run, have lunch with Ramona and when I came back, six hours later you were still in bed on TikTok, with several empty takeout containers. There is a difference.", the 'caught red handed' look was very cute on him, "Also, I spend a fair amount of time on that app, too, and don't think for a second I don't realise half the jokes you feed me have popped up on your 'for you page' and you thought I wouldn't notice your clever plagiarism.".
"Fine, you got me. I'll be on the sofa; you'll find me using TikTok and I won't even try to defend myself. Goodbye!", he ran a hand through his curls dramatically and left the loft.
Over the following weeks Harry and Jeff came up with a strategy for announcing that the tour would be postponed. Jeff thought a live stream of a concert in our back yard was an incredible idea and he assured me whatever equipment I need would be in my hands within an hour. Their sound engineers have been by several times to check the acoustics and the sound in our back garden, to figure out which microphones to use and how to isolate the background noise best.
"Tony, thank you so much for returning my call. How've you been?", I was in the kitchen when I got his call, I wanted to run something by him about the live stream.
"I'm happy you're working; it's such a breath of fresh air isn't it. Listen, I was hoping to run something by you, even though you aren't a videographer I know you've worked with a lot of video material and you know your way around the equipment.", I'd already assembled a preliminary list of cameras and supporting equipment I'd need, and I emailed it to Molly to check with her as well, but Tony was my guy when it came to professional advice.
"So, I'm filming this acoustic concert in a couple of days, in my back garden actually. And we're live streaming it from here, so I made a list of the things I'll need, and I hope you can help me figure out if it's enough or too much.", Tony assured me, even though it wasn't his area of expertise, he'd do his best.
"Okay, so first up are microphones: the ones Harry will use his team will pick, I think I'm going to go for the Rode NTG4+ for the camera because I've read excellent reviews. I've ordered a video encoder and a camera power system. The tripods that I've found to work best are the Benro single tube style and a new one on the market called the 3 Legged Thing Mike carbon fibre. Now, the cameras are where you'll be able to help most, I think... I've decided to use both a DSLR and a camcorder on mounts so we can alternate between stills. I was thinking – the Canon Cinema EOS C100 Mark II for the DSLR and the Panasonic AG-UX180 for the camcorder. Also, I'll have a Canon EOS R5 for hand shooting. Does this make any sense?", he thought I'd made a good choice with all my cameras and he'd check with some of his co-workers about the mike.
"I don't know why, but when you start listing specs and talking in code it's insanely attractive to me.", I didn't notice Harry was standing behind me and listening in on my conversation with Tony.
"You scared me.", he sat down next to me, "I do sound quite professional, don't I?".
"Now it would be wonderful if you'd explain why we need all those things."
"Okay, the mikes are pretty self-explanatory, the video encoder is a must for live-streams because it helps with the quality and speed. The camera power system is so that I don't have anxiety attacks over something running out of battery, I can't really go around and change batteries in the middle of the stream, can I?", he nodded, "And the rest are just cameras with different specs and uses. I think it's a good idea to mix them and have two different still angles, but I'd also feel more comfortable with a hand-held camera just in case anything goes wrong.".
"It's both incredible and very strange to me how people have such different areas of expertise and I know nothing about cameras with many letters in the name, but I know a lot about sound and what works best in which environment. Blows my mind.", that was one of the cutest things he's ever told me, and funny because I also thought about stuff like that a lot.
"I know, I talk to Jeff and he starts telling me about strategies and schedules, then I meet Becks for lunch and she talks about teaching techniques in primary education and it blows my mind that I know nothing about those thing but could explain lighting and exposition and how location shooting is very different from studio shoots. But that's what makes life interesting, right? The possibility to learn something new every day."
TWO WEEKS LATER
"Hey, have you seen one of the big black bags that got delivered in the last two days?", I interrupted Harry's conversation with one of the sound guys.
"Uhm... Could be in the loft? Why?"
"It better be in the loft because that's the Panasonic and we can't pull tonight off without that baby.", a slight panic coloured his eyes from light green to a slightly cinnamony shade.
The back garden went through quite a transformation today – from plain and simply groomed to a faux brick wall covering our fence, fairy lights being hung all around, an old Aladdin-esque carpet taking over a big portion of grass and wires being carefully hidden throughout. Both my camera bags were, in fact, in the loft. Maybe not keeping a closer eye on them was my fault, but I was ready to label this a close call and move on.
"Essie are you ready to set up your part, so we can figure out where to hide the visible cords and do a test run?", Jeff was one of the many people that sporadically popped up around my house during the past week. I was used to it by now, and Bono figured out the cleverest thing would be to move into the loft for the time being.
"Sure, can you help me with those two long bags?", he carried the tripods while I carefully unpacked the cameras. These were rented, but if I was considering purchasing them if they ended up working. There was no telling how my portfolio could branch out after working with Harry, so it would be a good idea to have a versatile equipment.
We set the cameras up calculating the position of the sun for the beginning of the live stream and two stagehands followed all my instructions for covering the streetlamps with black cloth. The idea was to start with a Q&A portion during golden hour and then slowly transition into the concert bit. We'd called the police and notified them there would be louder music and we asked all our neighbours' permission to have this many people, loudspeakers, instruments, and studio lights. Nobody seemed to mind after they received a handwritten note and a bottle of expensive wine.
"What are you grumpy about?", Harry took a soundcheck break for a second and came over to my spot with the cameras.
"It's nothing...", it truly was nothing, but I didn't want to tell him because I know he'd find a way to change the setlist and/or introduce different plans, "it's silly, really. Don't worry about it, continue with the soundcheck.".
"Ess, I'm not leaving until you tell me what's bothering you."
"Fine, but it truly is silly... I've never heard Kiwi live. You rarely sing your own songs when we're home and I've never been to your concert.", he burst out laughing.
"Are you serious?", my profoundly serious face apparently wasn't convincing enough, "Oh, you are. Well, I promise I won't try to change the setlist because there is no way to perform Kiwi without waking up half of London, but I will sing it to you tonight, butt naked, to make it up to you.".
"You sure know how to get a girl excited... go along, first work then play."
The stream was going wonderfully, we only got a few connection complaints, and we did our best to stream the event on multiple platforms and please everyone. Harry was his charming self, answering fan questions and joking around. He did well with the cameras, which didn't surprise me at all seeing as he was fairly used to it. The Q&A portion was almost over, and I was getting a bit nervous for the concert bit. It would be more complex to film the concert than it was to film the stills of the Q&A, but we were very prepared and had multiple backup plans if something stopped functioning. Jeff was walking back and forth across our deck, quite nervously, which I didn't understand because the short event course I took taught me that a long and thorough preparation makes for a stellar execution. We'd prepared for everything, people were focused, Harry was killing it and it was turning out a success.
"There were a few complaints from my crew that Kiwi didn't end up on the setlist, so I'm certain quite a few of you are disappointed by that as well, but my neighbours would hate me for performing that particular track, so you'll have to forgive me. Instead, I've decided to end with an equally energetic track that we mastered in an acoustic sound – Treat People With Kindness.", I couldn't believe we were already nearing the end of the show, and I was really looking forward to watching it back and seeing it from the viewer's perspective.
The last beat ended, Harry said his goodbyes, thanked everyone for being a part of this experience and left them with a promise of seeing each other soon, which warmed my heart. His crew worked extremely fast unplugging all the instruments, rolling the cables and packing up, which left us with a few minutes to have a celebratory 'job well done' beer with Jeff and the band.
"We pulled this off, and I had my doubts about it when Harry first told me what the plan was, but we did it... Congratulations to all of you, it was incredible to feel the performance high and I cannot wait to experience it again.", Jeff raised his bottle up and our kitchen erupted into a symphony of glass clicking.
"It was incredible! I missed this so much, and I need to be honest and say this wasn't my idea, as I made you believe... It was all Essie, she felt bad for both us and the fans that will have to wait to attend a concert, so she suggested we do a streamed one instead. I'm immensely proud of all of you, and I know this tour will be the best one yet. Cheers!", Harry's hand wrapped around me and I felt a bit embarrassed by the praise, but ultimately happy to be valued.
"Now that everybodyis gone, I think it's time to play.", he led me upstairs and played the instrumentalversion of Kiwi, slowly taking bits of clothing off. Shirt, button by button...ring by ring, belt, trousers, shoes, and he was left in a pair of boxers andhis curls. This man would be the death of me.
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A/N: this was heavily inspired by my desperate counting down until Harry's JBB live :)))) I am so excited I can hardly wait, I've got class the next day and I live in Europe which means it starts at 2 in the morning for me, but all that is irrelevant once I remember it's basically like getting a piece of what Covid stole from us - back...
Hope you enjoyed this chapter, I did extensive research on the equipment and it just got me very excited to produce events again when our lives get returned to us.
Be kind, always.
T.