If you’ve gone to a live show at venues like the Ogden Theater, Three Kings Tavern, or the many other concert venues in Denver, you may have seen UC-Denver student Aaron Saye at work.
Saye has made a small living off his hobby of filming local and national acts since April of 2004. Attending three different concerts in a night to record, or to just attend, is normal to Aaron, but many don’t understand how or why he does it.
Saye is a double-major in film production and music industry studies at UCD.
Saye is also a serious music fan, having attended exactly 1,000 concerts on August 20. Some of the national acts he has recorded—with permission—were Fair To Midland, Brides Of Destruction, and The Gaslight Anthem.
Saye doesn’t go to a concert with a small camera hidden in his pants—he does it professionally. Tripods, audio-visual equipment, and many tapes are just some of Saye’s necessities for recording a show.
Using one camera for video quality and one for the open-air sounds, he is able to produce a great looking and sounding product.
Two of his tripods were found in dumpsters by friends and given to him, while much of his additional equipment came as presents from his parents. Saye has worked hard to be on a first-name basis with many venue managers, security staff, and local and national bands. He does this by keeping his word of never recording someone he doesn’t have permission to, and always bringing the band a quality product.
Saye didn’t strive to do this in the beginning though—he stumbled on the idea when he was in high school.
He and a few friends from high school were running around with a camcorder making a movie. Somehow, the idea came up for the band Throw Rag to say a few words in a scene for the movie. The day Throw Rag came to town, Saye and his friends found them close to the venue and asked them to do the scene for the movie.
“We showed up and found them around Logan [street] and just talked to them about it,” explained Saye. He was just planning to film the band after the show, but once they brought up live shooting, it gave him a new idea.
“We were thinking after the show, but shit, could we film during the show? It had never crossed my mind before to record a concert.”
That night, Saye and a few of his friends shot their first live show. From there, it spread like a wildfire.
Saye records the footage, goes home to edit it, puts it on a DVD, and mails it to the band he’s recorded.
In addition, he can also make live CDs from the recordings.
Many local bands, such as Iluminado, have used his audio recordings for their MySpace pages in place of studio recordings.
This job also comes with a few perks. After he’s recorded a show for a band, he’s usually put on the guest list, so the next time the band comes to Denver, he can either film again, or just enjoy the show.
Five years into recording live music, Saye can call it a business more than a hobby—but he’d rather call it a hobby. He charges $60 to record a show, edit the footage, and burn it on a disc. But it depends on the quality of the recording.
“I feel a show at the Gothic that’s going to sound amazing is worth 60 bucks,” said Saye. “But if it’s somewhere where the product isn’t going to be that good, I feel bad charging that much for it because it’s not going to be worth that.”
On top of recording countless shows a year, he also acts as band and tour manager for the local band Dethbox since March of 2008. This job was something Saye didn’t even plan on doing.
One day, he was going to film a recording session with Dethbox and the band needed a ride to the studio, so they called Saye.
The ride was given, Saye hung out, filmed what he wanted, and ended up going to lunch with the band.
Saye explained the way it came about: “We got to talking about how I used to manage another band and they were like, ‘Why don’t you manage our band?’” He did.
“There’s not any money involved at this point at all; it’s just something I want to do,” said the music lover.
Whether managing, or recording, Saye is doing what he loves.
Saye doesn’t have an official count of recordings, but he does know that his thousandth concert was Throw Rag at the Larimer Lounge on August 20.
“Its just amazing and fitting that my thousandth show is the first band that let me record and gave me my start!”
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