This whole project kicked off last Tuesday night when I was scrolling through fan pages, coffee going cold in my mug. Saw like seven posts about Austin Hayes’ concert footage getting buried in random clips, and I got real annoyed. Thought: “Someone’s gotta organize the pure gold stuff for regular folks.” So I slammed my laptop open and started digging.
Getting Down to Filthy Work
First I emptied my saved videos folder – over 500 Austin clips from the past year. Started scrubbing through every second like a crazy person, labeling stuff: “stage dive”, “guitar solo fail”, “audience singalong”. My cat kept stepping on the keyboard when the epic riffs played.
- Phase 1: Watched 83 straight minutes of concert footage until my eyes felt sandy. Saved timestamps for every cool moment on sticky notes covering my desk.
- Phase 2: Culled half the clips after rewatching at 4am. Turns out what seemed amazing at 2am was just stage smoke under blue lights.
- Phase 3: Made the brutal cuts. That guitar solo where Austin tripped over a cable? Trashed it. Five clips fought their way to the top:
What Actually Cracked the Top 5
Momemnt #3 shook me. Found this grainy cellphone vid from last year’s Chicago show where Austin stops the song cold when he spots a kid crying in the front row. Grabs his own water bottle, vaults the barrier, hands it over while patting the kid’s shoulder. Crowd erupted like thunder. Goosebumps city.
#1 wasn’t even on my radar! Almost trashed this one-second clip of Austin catching a flying bra mid-song, immediately spinning it on his mic stand like a basketball before flinging it backstage without missing a lyric. Fans went wild in the comments claiming ownership.
Execution Nightmares
Tried editing on my ancient laptop. Render froze at 97% three times. Cussed loud enough to wake the neighbor’s beagle. Finally exported at 480p because my software started smoking. Uploaded it raw anyway – comments proved fans care more about the moments than 4K polish.
Checked the post this morning. Top comment: “How did you FIND the water bottle clip? My sister filmed that!” Almost cried into my cereal. Mission accomplished.
