Credit: Found On Internet

“So this is how the magic happens?”

Sami, Roadrunner UK’s Head of Street promotion, has just stuck her head around the corner to tell us that Within Temptation are going to be a little late.

If this was a magic trick, it’d be damned complicated one. There are five of us gathered in the Keith Moon bar of the London Astoria – albeit Music Towers being the fifth wheel – ready to hold booms and cameras of various sizes, or just to make sure that no wandering roadcrew bust through the doors at the wrong moment, making it sound on tape like we’re being raided by the flying squad. To what end? Music Towers has tagged along on MusFlash TV’s first location shoot – an interview with Dutch symphonic metallers, Within Temptation – just how hard can this TV lark really be?

Even though people no longer believe anyone in the media who complains that it’s not all glitz and glamour, location shoots are more along the lines of grit and clamour. It’s very much a hurry-up-and-wait, as after the rush to set up for our 2pm slot, we’re left to kick our heels, while singer, Sharon den Adel, and guitarist, Robert Westerholt, make their way to the venue. Apart from Cameraman Joe, who threw up his lights and tripod with the kind of speedy ease that made the rest of us look like a bunch of hungover amateurs.

Well, it was pretty early on a Saturday.

So why are MusFlash TV so intent on getting Within Temptation down in front of a camera? In addition to the quite frankly ridiculous numbers of fans that are queuing up over four hours before the doors open, the band have got a new video out for their single ‘What Have You Done Now?’, featuring Life of Agony vocalist, Keith Caputo, which the fledgling channel is looking to run quite heavily. A little interview footage to pack with it would tick everyone’s boxes. Which is why I find myself reading out a list of questions, squeezed between the boom and the main camera, so that when Sharon and Robert respond they will have a decent eye-line just off-lens.