Everybody knows that experiencing a Solar Eclipse is something magnificent, but have you ever experienced playing your music during such an incredible event? Let me share with you my story.
I’m Gabriel Balderas, also known as Dave Murilo, the guy behind the scenes for all digital content for One Rocket Mom. Ever since we discussed the Solar Eclipse of 2024 a couple of months back I envisioned myself playing music for such a once-in-a-lifetime experience and on this Monday I was able to fulfill that goal.
I’ve had experience shooting commercials, videos, and promotional videos but I never imagined preparing for shooting the solar eclipse would be such an adventure, from rectifying that the solar glasses I bought had the proper filter to worrying that my solar filter for the camera wouldn’t arrive on time to making sure I practiced my live set enough so that I wouldn’t mess up during the eclipse. I have to say this takes a spot in the top 3 events that I had to prepare the most for in my life.
I moved back to Torreon, Coahuila, to film the solar eclipse. The night before I even dreamt about all the events leading up to the eclipse, from going to the store to buy drinks and snacks to having everything set up and knowing something would mess up. But once I had everything ready to go, the day finally arrived. As soon as I woke up I rushed to the window to check the weather, as it was forecasted to be mostly cloudy, but to my surprise, at around 6:30 a.m. there were barely any clouds, but it was too soon to celebrate. As the sun started to rise, you could see a big layer of clouds closing in from the horizon, and as the day started to get gloomy, so did I.
“Everything that I worked for, all the money invested for all this equipment and filters just to have it in vain due to horrible weather” I thought, but I was still set on recording everything regardless of the weather. When we arrived at our filming spot, I started to set up my music equipment and my cameras, still with grey skies, and looked at the horizon hoping that it would at least clear up for the totality.
The time hit the 10:00 a.m. mark (when the eclipse would start to be visible) and the sky still was covered in thick clouds, you could barely see anything. I practiced a couple of runs from my set to make sure I had everything ready to go and by 11:15 the sky finally started to clever out a bit, we could finally see the start of the eclipse!
As more time went by, the weather started to smile upon us and let us see more and more of the eclipse, so I quickly rushed to my camera and started recording. I couldn’t believe my eyes, I was getting a great shot from the eclipse! As the 12:00 p.m. mark started to arrive, I made sure all cameras were properly set up and started recording my live set.
Everything exceeded my expectations, the weather started to clear up more and more, the cameras were recording everything, and I didn’t mess up my live performance (gotta admit, practice makes perfect). Time went by and then it finally arrived, the totality.
I had a special song that I wanted to play during the totality that most people are bound to recognize, the Interstellar Theme by Hans Zimmer. So when the sky became dark as night, I started to play it like there was no tomorrow and everything just felt so perfectly synced. The totality made the eclipse appear 3 times bigger than you would normally see the moon, the stars were so bright as if it was nighttime, you could feel a chill breeze coming from the North, and the Interstellar theme was just a perfect fit for the occasion (I had to play the last part while looking up because I didn’t want to miss a second of it haha).
So I finished playing the Interstellar theme and rushed to my camera, I was capturing the totality as if I had trained a lot of time shooting the sun but it was my first time, and the shot looked so professional (judge for yourself in this pic).
Once the totality passed, I rushed back to my set up to play my last song of the set to finally conclude all of the recordings of this event. While it was a lot of stress to prepare and to play during a spectacular event, I must admit that it left a heartwarming feeling within me to be able to do what I love the most during such an amazing astronomical event. If you would like to see the video I recorded you can do so at the following link:
Also feel free to use the pictures I took of the eclipse for your own purposes, just make sure to give credit to One Rocket Mom and Dave Murilo. Thanks for reading through and hope to catch you soon next time!
