Long time client, Santana, again chose XL Touring Video as video contractor for their recent Embrace your Light tour.
“I must say that in the seven years I have been with the Santana show, it has never been as great from my side of the video world as it was on this most recent run this year," says video director Bob Higgins. "There was an (accumulative) magic that took place. It was the crew, of course, that made the real difference, and the gear, that remained consistent, which allowed me to always keep my promise of a quality show. We all know how difficult it is to provide that with an 'off and on' tour, but XLTV NEVER let me down, nor ever left me wondering for a second whether it was going to be exactly right. In twenty years, I have never felt as rewarded as I have with the Santana show, band, and crew. It makes it really easy for me to say I love this job.”
XL supplied the tour with a Barco D7 and a Sony D35 SDI with a Ross Synergy switcher. Touring on behalf of XL was Kyle Brinkman/LED technician, Seth Sharpless/engineer, and camera ops Lonnie Stoner, Jeff Johnson and Stephen Falconer. Production management and direction was by the Mike “Hoss” Keifer.
President of XLTV, John Wiseman, says “It was very rewarding for me to watch Bob take it to another level artistically. The company, as a whole had a sense of pride watching him creatively come into his own on this tour – he did an admirable job.”
The Embrace your Light tour began March 5, 2005 in San Juan, Puerto Rico and the last tour date was October 16th, 2005 in Concord, CA. Their last show of the tour, however, was a record release show in New York, November 1, 2005 at the Hammerstein Ballroom.