November 19, 2009 – In a raucous, celebratory performance, Sammy Hagar electrified fans with a set fitting of an American rock icon with 40 years of work experience kicking ass and taking names. When the Red Rocker hit the stage, he brought Cabo Wabo with him: it was party time.

Photographer’s Notes:

Sammy Hagar came out rockin’ like a true pro. While he moved around quite a bit, this was still a light and fun shoot.

Sammy was backed by a three-piece band, and the stage was graced by three spotlights from the balcony. While Sammy’s white capri pants created an exposure issue with the uneven illumination from the spots, I always side with skintones in instances like this.

One very nice thing about this show is that, unlike many gigs with spotlights in a club like the Pageant, there was still a nice, atmospheric treatment to liven up the background. Liberal use of water hazers saw to that.

The biggest challenge for this set was probably Hagar’s movements on stage. He didn’t stay still for long, and while he was at the mic, his custom stand proved to be it’s own unique obstacle.

For the most part, I shot Hagar most when he moved out from his mic stand on the right or left, where there were gaps between his monitors and those of his guitarist and bass player.

As usual, the D3 and D700 worked in tandem for this set, along with the 14-24mm, 24-70mm, and 70-200mm.

Almost 25 years after their formation, the Cult laid down a solid performance of no-nonsense hard rock at the Pageant. With support from Action Action, the Cliks, and the Knives, the British rockers performed a solid set that drew from their classic hits, as well as material for their latest release, Born Into This.

Without a doubt, the stars of the performance were frontman Ian Astbury and guitarist Billy Duffy, who dominated the stage with big grins and big performances. The pair shared the most time in the spotlight, literally, and genuinely seemed to be enjoying their stage time on this tour.

Shooting Notes:

The Cult’s performance was distinguished by the happy combination of great lighting and a veteran group that knows how to hit all the rock star moves.

The band played with their speaker monitors positioned about a meter back from the front of the stage, which pushed them farther back from the crowd than many acts that come through the Pageant.

While I was initially concerned about the impact this might have on the energy of the set, the band delivered on the rock and the distance didn’t have much of an effect on the images.

During a quick image search of the band’s recent live shots, I was also wondering whether Astbury would be sporting his trademark headband or other accouterments, but a pair of shades was the extent of the adornment.

Overall, the shoot was a snap. Between the great poses struck by the band and the abundant lighting, the set was fun and lacking in any supreme technical challenges.

Lighting:

Overall, the lighting for the first three songs was a simple scheme that utilized white light from the front in contrast with a variety of high backlighting.

A spotlight alternated between Ian Astbury and Billy Duffy, providing a very welcome boost to the house lights, which seemed to be on full blast from the front in a marked departure from their normal dimmed state.

The backlighting consisted of a cycling treatment of yellow, magenta, cyan, and white light, primarily with the use of one color at a time.

Lenses:

I shot with the Nikon 17-55mm f/2.8 for the majority of the time, the range of which was quite good despite the band’s increased distance from the front of the stage.

I can imagine that the lens section from shows at the Pageant may be getting a bit monotonous, as the midrange zoom secures a lot of camera-time at this venue. Still, I find the lens so well suited to concert photography that it’s often my first choice for these sorts of gigs.

Supplementing the 17-55 was the Nikon 85mm f/1.4, the range of which was highly useful for picking up tighter shots of lead singer Astbury, as well as the requisite drummer shot for John Tempesta.

While the absolute speed of the prime was not necessary, thanks the lighting, its fast-focusing, focal length, and excellent optical performance were all welcome at this show.

Exposure:

In a rare treat, I shot at ISO 1000 at f/2.8 and 1/160 throughout much of the set, broadening to ISO 800 and ISO 1250 as the lighting required. Though the Pageant is well lit for headliners most of the time, the exposure for the Cult’s set was unusually comfortable.

A good number of the images were shot at a luxurious 1/200 second as well. At the low end, I dipped to 1/100 at f/2.8 and ISO 1250 for a shot of guitarist Duffy when he got a leg up on one of the monitors during a lull in the lighting.

Shutter speeds topped out at 1/250 at f/2.2 and ISO 800 when using the Nikon 85mm f/1.4.

End Notes:

Even without being familiar with the Cult’s music, their set at the Pageant was a blast to shoot, in no small part thanks to the band’s charisma.

One of the most refreshing aspects of the gig was to photograph such veteran rockers without shooting up their noses from below a 10-foot stage. Were that the case, the Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 would have been a must, so shooting this intimate gig with the more personable 17-55mm and 85mm Nikkors was a treat.

For the full image set from the Cult’s performance, you can hit the Flick gallery:

The Cult @ the Pageant — 2007.11.29

Opening in support of VHS or Beta and Moving Units, Brooklyn-based Soft brought a mix of Britpop-inspired tunes that drew heavily from their 2007 release, Gone Faded. Flirting with shoegaze aesthetics in layers of swirling guitars, singer Johnny Reineck’s codeine vocals made a smooth start to the night, loosening up the audience for the dance party to come.

Shooting Notes:

With no pit at the Blender Theatre, I staked out a spot just house right of the mic stand and center monitors, which put me in prime position for photographing singer Johnny Reineck and bassist Dino Siampos.

While Reineck was a relatively static subject, with both hands fixed on the mic throughout the set, Siampos was a much more frenetic target in his space on stage, wheeling his instrument around and seeming to enjoy playing in one of the city’s finer venues.

Lighting:

Compared to the later sets by Moving Units and VHS or Beta, the house lighting for Soft was relatively simple, with warm frontlighting on Reineck throughout the set, and a fair amount of hot white backlighting mixed with blue and red washes from the back of the stage.

If anything, the abundant backlighting provided a challenge for flare and metering, especially in the instances of the bright white light blaring from the back of the stage.

Lenses:

Due to the relatively abundant light, I shot with the Nikon 17-55mm f/2.8 at maximum aperture for Soft’s entire set, and the range of the zoom left very little to be desired.

Exposure:

The f/2.8 aperture of the zoom was perfectly adequate for the light and I shot at shutter speeds between 1/80 and 1/160 at ISO 1600.

Playing to an adoring crowd, Kevin Barnes lead his band Of Montreal through a roaring twenty-song set of psychedelic indie pop at the Pageant. Freed from the precious trappings of their album recordings, the sexed-up live performance delivered a more raucous version of fan favorites while still remaining as pretty as Barnes in eyeliner and fishnets.

With their glam rock swagger, the opening Prince cover songs, “I would Die 4 You” and “Baby I’m A Star,” seemed as natural and effortless to Of Montreal as anything else in their catalogue. From there, the band ripped into the sparkling “Suffer For Fashion,” the lead track on this year’s critically acclaimed Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?.

Of Montreal proceeded to step-kick their way into a setlist that drew primarily from their last three albums, heavy with favorites that spurred cheers from the audience. Highlights included “I Was Never Young,” “Oslo In The Summertime,” “Gronlandic Edit,” “So Begins Our Alabee,” and the shimmering “Heimdalsgate Like A Promethean Curse.”

Shooting Notes:

Arriving at the venue, I was greeted by a very crowded pit, filled with anxious concert-goers ready for the dance party to come. With very minimal security, the house obviously wasn’t expecting trouble from the glittered kids on the floor. In fact, there were only two guards loosely covering the entrances to the photo pit on either side of the stage.

On stage, Of Montreal’s setup included several platforms on which all but frontman Kevin Barnes performed. One negative effect of this setup was that the band members felt more anonymous and detached from one another, which, despite the infectious pop melodies, created a colder and less engaging group dynamic than I’ve seen at previous shows.

The upside, however, was that the ample space allowed Barnes lots of freedom on stage to dance, skip, and generally do his freaky thing.

Unlike other dates on this tour, the theatrics of additional characters on stage was conspicuously absent. The lone exception was the appearance of a trumpeter in a horned viking helmet, who graced the stage briefly early on in the show.

The black-clad mimes present at a few other recent shows on the tour, unfortunately, did not make an appearance, though Barnes’s own flamboyant character was more than enough to engage the audience.

Overcoming the somewhat awkward stage setup, Barnes made several trips to the sides of the stage to reach out to fans, while Jamey Huggins came down off the stage to play perched on the pit’s security barricade.

Aside from Barnes, guitarist Bryan Poole was the most readily accessible member of the band, who had arguable the best lighting of the group with regular backlighting effects.

For this show, I shot for the entirety of the set without interruption.

Lighting:

Lighting for this show was one of the more less dynamic displays I’ve seen for a touring national act, in part due to the set design, which included light features in a series of the raised platforms. These fixures took the form of translucent panels that lit up individually and in patterned groups, providing an inconstant but welcome source of bright white light sporadically throughout the performance.

Aside from the lighting provided by the panels on the risers, the stage received a fairly steady treatment of high frontlighting throughout the set. Contrasting this effect, a rainbow of backlighting shown at intervals during the performance, alternating between ambient accents to full, blown-out brightness, and everywhere in between. In general, the house lighting was dimmest in between songs and when the set lights were on full blast.

While the platform lighting created a great contrast for the crowd, the actual light on the band was kept to a minimum to emphasize the set.

Lenses:

For this shoot, I relied on the Nikon 17-55mm f/2.8, which I used mostly at 30mm and below. The wide end of the zoom was particularly useful for the more active stage antics of frontman Kevin Barnes, who made ample use of the stage locking, popping, and otherwise getting his grove on when not on vocal duties.

When the light levels dropped, I turned to a trio of f/1.4 primes, utilizing the Sigma 30mm, Nikon 50mm, and Nikon 85mm. The Sigma was a useful general lens for the event given its relatively wide field of view, while the 85mm was particularly useful for shots of the rear stage.

The reach of the Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 would have been nice, but the performers on the back riser were generally much more dimly lit, so the speed of the 85mm was essential.

The modest Nikon 50mm f/1.4 came into play for a few snaps of Barnes and crew, balancing between the ambience of the 30mm and the islation of the 85mm.

Exposure:

While the lighting was unremarkable, it was also relatively constant throughout much of the set and with no major surprises. Strobes, thankfully, where no where to be seen, which made exposure an easy affair.

The ISO was locked at ISO 1600 throughout the shoot, other than a few snaps of the crowd at ISO 3200. Shutter speeds were somewhat marginal, due to high frontlighting, ranging between 1/60 and 1/160 second.

End Notes:

As always, you can peep the Flickr for the full set of images from this show:

Of Montreal @ the Pageant — 2007.11.19

In addition, to see images from the three other times I’ve photographed the band, you can hit these Flickr galleries as well:

Of Montreal @ the Gargoyle — 2006.02.25
Of Montreal @ Mississippi Nights — 2006.08.14
Of Montreal @ the Pitchfork Music Festival — 2007.07.14