How I Met Zara Larsson
During the summer of this past year, I started to volunteer for Sofar Sounds Long Island. I began my contributions by checking in guests, and with time I became an essential live sound engineer for the Long Island branch. Have you ever heard of Sofar Sounds?
Sofar stands for “Songs From A Room,” and it’s a music events startup was founded in England. Its mission is to build a community by uniting artists and guests together for secret shows in intimate settings, and it has grown to have over 400 participating cities around the world.
My car needed a new alternator in the beginning of November, so I was at the mechanic when my phone rang; I answered and it was Craig Cosgrove, the Long Island Branch Leader of Sofar Sounds. In a nutshell, these were his questions and statements:
Are you available on November 26th?We may have a show for ZARA LARSSON and we NEED live soundIt’s going to be EPIC!
I was never expecting to be offered to work live sound for a pop star with over 5 million Instagram followers… ever. In my life. So I said yeah, I can be available.
I was a little nervous that this show would not respect the original mission of Sofar Sounds because the artist is so big and it ended up being promoted all over Long Island, but honestly… so much of the audience was sitting on tapestries on the floor so close to the artists performing, and no one was using their phones during the show and in between sets you could just FEEL a community forming… and THAT is what sets Sofar shows from your typical shows.
Ironically, I think the best part of this entire experience is that the event got sponsored by Epic Records and Cox Media Group, which meant I wasn’t running live sound for Zara!
& believe me, I really loved sitting back and relaxing (not having to stress out) for the show and being in the VIP to chill with her. & if you’re wondering, she’s such an awesome person!
