There’s a certainly a humorous quip to be made about an air traffic controller standing out in the open marshes of the South Shore. But Boston’s Air Traffic Controller are usually ones to defy convention, and as we’ve learned by now, Live From Nowhere will stop at nothing to find the far reaches of New England fit for a pop-up musical performance.
In Live From Nowhere’s latest video, Air Traffic Controller are taken south of Boston down to an abandoned hunting lodge. The band performed “Water Falls”, another cut off this year’s masterful Black Box LP, on a day that featured attempts to balance the band and crew on wooden planks over sea ravines and a mad dash to get back to solid ground before sunset’s high tide.
Just another day in the environmental, wall-less office of Live From Nowhere.
“One day it just dawned on me that as a teen my friends and I used to explore the marshes [on the] South Shore and had found this abandoned cabin,” says Live From Nowhere co-producer Nico Rivers. “To get to this location we lugged our gear on a 45-minute trek through the marsh using planks to cross the large ravines. After the shoot we stepped out of the cabin to find the last plank we laid floating in the water as the tide had come in while we were filming. On top of that, the sun was quickly setting, so we had to move quickly. Luckily we all made it out through a wall of marsh grass just as the night was consumed in darkness.”
Adds co-producer Emily Graham-Handley: “We planned around the tide very carefully, and still by the end were surrounded by water. We had the coast guard’s number and were really happy not to use it.”
Past Live From Nowhere locations have targeted abandoned city zoo cages and rural winter forests, but Graham-Handley says this is “the furthest we’ve gone off the grid.” She also jokes that she’s “pretty sure the band had no idea what they were in for. There was probably some thought that this was an elaborate plot to kill them. They strapped in for the ride though and we’re really glad they did, they were so much fun to work with.”
No Air Traffic Controllers were harmed in the making of this video.
Watch it below, view our gallery from Live From Nowhere’s recent release party in Somerville, and check out the 2016 Boston Music Awards ballot, where Air Traffic Controller was nominated in three categories: Song of the Year (“On The Wire”), Video of the Year (“The House”), and Female Vocalist of the Year (Casey Sullivan).