Rocking out on the Love Drunk Tour with Boys Like Girls, Cobra Starship – everyone’s favorite guilty pleasure – stormed the Pageant with a high-energy show that had the fans heaving against the barricade for a little piece of Gabriel Saporta.
Photographer’s Notes:
This show was pretty much insane to photograph. The Love Drunk Tour featured a huge amount of lights on the side of the stage, blasting Gabriel Saporta and the rest of the band with white light, blue light, and all the other colors of the rainbow in full strobographic effect.
Having photographed Cobra Starship at a much smaller venue, I was very curious about the band’s stage treatment for this show. The funny thing about all the lights on the big stage of the Pageant is that the cross-lighting effect wasn’t all that different effect of the wireless flash setup I used to photograph the band at Pop’s.Of course, the big difference with this show and the last was that this time I wasn’t in control of the lights.
And to add to the lighting challenges, Saporta’s madman-domination of the speaker monitors at the front of the stage made for a constant and powerful dilemma for the camera.
Due to the lighting and stage antics, I focused primarily on Saporta, and followed the singer for most of the duration of the first three songs.
End Notes:
Big thanks to Kelly for setting up this show. Also, a note of respect to Cobra Starship – even with a radio hit and lots of new found success, these guys shows a massive amount of gratitude to their fans, new and especially old. I’m already looking forward to Cobra’s next headlining tour.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 18th, 2009 at 2:55 pm and is filed under Music Photography and tagged with 2009, cobra starship, gabe saporta, gabriel saporta, guilty pleasure, live, music photographer, Music Photography, tour. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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Everyone's favorite guilty pleasure. Fangs up, Cobra style. http://is.gd/4Yg4X
RT @toddowyoung: Everyone's favorite guilty pleasure. Fangs up, Cobra style. http://is.gd/4Yg4X
Wow.
Jason – thanks.
I second that “Wow”.
Thanks x2, Abby.
I shot them in Toronto on Sunday and the photographers were separated into two sides and we can’t get into the middle. I was upset because it ruined the chance of getting his jump shots!!
Love the one with Gabe’s leg up!!
Hey Jessie,
That’s strange that you had to shoot from one side or the other. One thing I do know that might have contributed is that Saporta’s security guy came down before the set started and requested that the house security guys not be in the middle half of the stage, and marked off a section where they weren’t to be standing. I think this had something to do with Gabe going up on the barricade during the show.
Yeah I figured that much. It was really disappointing and he didn’t even go down during the three songs!!
Yeah, Gabe came down twice at my show, but it was only during the last few songs.
Todd,
I’ve loved Cobra Starship ever since I saw them back at the Creepy Crawl with We The Kings. I was there Friday night and it was amazing. I love all the pictures you took, kudos. Which out of the pictures that you took Friday night was the hardest with the lighting ?
Hey Janessa,
Wow, a Creepy Crawl show with Cobra would have been fun – I missed that show, but I remember when they came through.
Basically all of the photos were equally hard, since the lighting was changing constantly throughout all of the band’s set. But I’ll say that any image of Gabe moving around was made more difficult due to that challenge of motion blur and focusing.
RT @toddowyoung: Everyone's favorite guilty pleasure. Fangs up, Cobra style. http://is.gd/4Yg4X
you are making me wish i shot cobra when they were in town a few weeks ago. i dont care for boys like girls a ton, but i thought itd be fun to see cobra.
Hey Alexis,
If it makes you feel any better, Cobra were very, very difficult to photograph. Not an easy shoot by any means, considering the wild lighting, Gabe’s stage show, and, at least for this show, the height of the stage.
The Creepy Crawl show was fun, unless of course you were in the front few rows, falling onto the stage, haha. Those poor kids. Nice shots, Todd, though I probably will never go see this band again.
Hey Chris,
Yeah, the Creepy Crawl is an experience, that’s for sure. It certainly has it’s place in the food chain, but I don’t see myself shooting there again any time soon.
hey there, what kind of wireless flash set up are you using?
Hi Cara,
I shoot Nikon, so for the previous show, I’d used several Nikon flashes using IR triggering.
I feared for your life(and your camera) at that show. His mic spins. haha Gabe was moving like crazy. That was such a fun show!
Great job with these.
I’ll be at the all time low concert tomorrow. I’ll say hello if Im close enough to the pit. Even though I’ll end up on the balcony,because I don’t want to get trampled on by hundreds of 15 yr olds. Crazy emo kids. : )
Hi Lea,
There were a few times when I noticed Gabe’s mic swinging close to my skull, but since he was standing above me, I was pretty safe, as he’d have hit the mic against the monitors before it hit me, for the most part.
Thanks for the comment?
Hey Todd,
I see that there was a lot of energy and crazy antics going on during this set do you feel like you were chasing them around or did you try and wait in an area for them to come?
Hey Derek,
Yeah, there was a lot of energy at this show – lots of jumps by Gabe. I stayed near the center of the stage for the most part, which is where Gabe hovered around for the performance.
What lens did you use to shoot this show?
Ashley,
I used the Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8 the majority of the time, though I also used the Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8 and 70-200mm f/2.8.
these are amazing. really.
@shoottothrill Hope this inspires you for Cobra Starship http://ishootshows.com/2009/11/18/cobra-starship-2/ brilliant work! How's you?
[...] photographed Cobra Starship back in 2008 on the Sassy Back Tour and again last year performing with Boys Like Girls on the Love Drunk Tour, and it’s great to see these guys achieving success over the last few [...]