Diego + Rachael Yamagata
I had the fortune to catch Rachael Yamagata live in concert for the second time in Austin.
The first time I had the chance to see (and meet) her was when she played in Indianapolis, roughly 2 years ago.
She is a truly brilliant singer/songwriter. Her songs have a way of simply getting deep inside your skin –specially when you see her sing such personal, heartfelt lyrics in person.
During her show in Indianapolis, she asked for someone in the crowd to come up on stage and play 4 easy chords on guitar. I really wanted to do it, but somehow I got immediate stage fright and didn’t raise my hand. Someone else went up to play and all I remember thinking was “why didn’t I raise my hand? Why was I scared”?
I thought at least I’d at least let her know that I really wanted to play with her –so I found her outside after the show.
I told her exactly why I had not raised my hand and she was very supportive about it. She encouraged me to not be afraid to jump in and do something I really want, no matter how much it scares me. I remember very well when she said “keep on playing –and maybe one of these days, I’ll come see one of your shows!”
Maybe that is one of the reasons why there are a few videos of me playing similarly heartfelt songs on this site…
Once I had the chance to talk to her in Austin again, I reminded her of what she had done in Indy, since she didn’t ask anyone to go up on stage this time around. She told me she had stopped asking people to do that, but that if I really wanted to go up on stage and play with her, I should have just screamed it out…
Maybe next time –just like she wrote on the vinyl cover she singed for me:
Here’s a video I recorded at the show in Austin of here playing my favourite song from her latest album “Chesapeake” called You Won’t Let Me
Sadly, the audio here is really, really bad.
I had the misfortune of having a brand new (yet defective) iPhone 4S during this show. Although the iPhone has always had superb quality when it comes to video recordings, this phone had a bad external mic.
The video you see (and hear) has been modified (many, many times) to try and enhance the sound. It’s not perfect, but it’s heaps better than the original recording. I spent a over an hour in Final Cut Pro trying to make it as good as possible.
At least you can get a glimpse of her live show. If she is playing anywhere near you, I highly recommend you see her live –whether or not you know her music. I had the chance to bing my friend Enrique Delgado who didn’t know her and came out rather impressed.