It feels like it's been forever and a day since I shot something for Surviving the Golden Age. I don't know why, but I haven't been getting access to the shows I want to cover. Formally, I haven't covered a lot of concerts so far this year, but there's still plenty of year to go. Shooting this show felt good: I know and like the venue, it has decent light and I was familiar with the music. I had covered Lady Lamb in May of last year at Cafe 9 and wasn't happy with my results. (I still blame food poisoning from a certain Mexican restaurant in the area!) So I was really determined to photograph LLtB in a way that captured her energy and emotions. It's definitely easier the second time you photograph a musician because you know how they move on stage. I'm much happier with these results.
I arrived at the Ballroom with only a couple songs left of the Wild Ones set. It was a particularly long deadline at the day job, so there was nothing I could do. I was still able to switch sides during their performance to get enough angles. For LLtB, I stuck to the left side of the stage. I could see all the musicians from that vantage point and knew that Aly turns more to that side when she sings. Unfortunately, her mic was set up directly under a red light which is why her pictures are mostly all black and white. Sometimes, there's nothing you can do but roll with it. Typhoon was the largest band I've yet to photograph on a stage way too small for them. 11 people all facing different directions and me with a rapidly fading camera battery. (I was down to one bar well into LLtB set and had conviently left my fully charged battery on the charger...at home!) I was still able to fire off over 600 shots on one bar of battery; I'm certainly impressed with that, Canon! Anyway, enough talk from me, on to the photos!
Wild Ones
Lady Lamb the Beekeeper
Typhoon
The last couple of shots were taken from the back of the room right before my camera battery finally died. That was my only regret of the night; I could've taken a lot more pictures of Typhoon, but I was thrilled to get as many as I did. It was good to know that even though I haven't been shooting concerts as much as I would like, I was still able to get some great results. I guess it's just like riding a bike.
As always, I leave you with shoes: