Live Baby Live

June 14, 2008 @ Bonnaroo - Manchester, TN

I know this is kind of a cop out, but seeing as I recently wrote about Mastodon in my Best of 2008 post, and it neatly summed up everything I feel about this band, I’m just going to copy it here:

Mastodon. Oh man. I’m not the biggest metal fan in the world, but seeing/shooting these guys will melt your face, kick up your adrenaline and then leave you completely exhausted, but in a totally exhilarating way. I LOVE shooting these guys almost more than any other band out there. I’ve never taken speed (or any other upper…or even drank coffee), but if I did, the feeling I get when shooting them is what I imagine it to be like. Even if you don’t really know Mastodon’s music, they are definitely worth seeing live. Run, don’t walk.

For this particular show, we were almost denied entry into the pit, as security feared the crowd was going to get rowdy. It was the middle of the afternoon and the place was full of stinky hippies, so I just kind of laughed and waited patiently. After security realized that people were pretty chill, we were allowed in in small groups for two songs only. It went by crazy fast, so I concentrated most of my shooting time on Troy Sanders (singer/bass). I love watching him. He’s the nicest guy off stage and then unleashes the beast when he’s playing. I can’t get enough.

Mastodon have a new album called Crack The Sky coming out on March 24th, and just released their first video for “Divinations” late last week, which can be seen on their site. But! Best news of all–they’ll be back in Toronto at the Opera House on May 5th. I can’t f’ing wait.

More photos after the break.

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October 28, 2008 @ Queen Elizabeth Theatre - Toronto, ON

“I am covered in feathers and I’m not sure what I just witnessed”

Those were the first words I tweeted right after this show ended. Nuns, John McCain masks, machine guns, glitter, roller skaters, a hanging, feathers, a coffin full of shaving cream, and a plethora of other random weirdness later, the winner for ‘Most Sensory Overload In A Live Show’ goes to Of Montreal. I still don’t think I’ve fully processed what happened, not to mention the fact that months later I’m still discovering glitter and bits of feather in my camera bag.

Being able to shoot the full show was both a blessing and a curse–so many different scenes to choose from makes it very difficult to edit down. I ended up shooting 7Gb at this show, but sadly, about 3Gb somehow went missing, so much of the debauchery won’t be shown below. If I locate the images, I will update this post.

Full set of photos after the fold.
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June 14, 2008 @ Bonnaroo - Manchester, TN

I don’t really have much more to add about Ghostland Observatory that wasn’t already said in my Top 10 Live Shows post, aside from the fact that I’ve been waiting very impatiently for them to make their way to Toronto. Do you hear me, Ghostland? STILL WAITING! I’d really like to experience the full show.

Unfortunately, from a photo perspective, while the laser light show was incredibly cool, it didn’t cast very much light on the caped Thomas Turner, who was tucked over to the side behind a keyboard in almost total darkness. So consider this gallery the Aaron Behrens show.

A bit of news:

If you’re on Twitter, you might want consider following @livebabylive. Thanks to this newfangled (to me) Wordpress plugin technology, I have this baby set up to automatically update Twitter with a link to new posts. I will also be posting other stuff on there, such as quick news, contests, etc.

Also, from now on, image galleries will be integrated into each post, with all photos (aside from the top one) being posted after the jump (click ‘read more’).

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Meant to post this a few days back. I’m not lapsing on the site again, I swear! I’m actually in the midst of transferring my site over to Wordpress and tweaking the layout, so it may be quiet here for another week or two, but then I’ll be posting regularly. For real…you can stop laughing.

Anyhow, these are most of my photo passes from 2008. Many shows I shot didn’t require a physical pass, so obviously this isn’t representative of every show from the year. Thought I’d post this because people seem to take interest in these things for some reason. Coolest pass, by far, is the Oasis one in the second row, below the green Foo Fighters pass (the foot).  If you’re interested in checking out the notes on each pass, head on over to Flickr.

This past year ended up being a bit quieter for me on the concert front, seeing and shooting just over 200 bands. The past few years I was averaging 300, so even though 200 still seems like quite a lot, it was a pretty significant drop.

My overall highlight of the year was Bonnaroo, which is starting to become an annual trip. The breadth and depth of this festival makes it so fantastic, which is why five out of my top ten shows came from that weekend–and it looks like June 14, 2008, in particular, was a really great day for me.

These are in no particular order, aside from number one:

B.B. King @ Bonnaroo - June 14, 2008 (pictured above)
I already wrote about this show earlier in the year, and even though I didn’t see his entire set, what I did manage to catch was pretty amazing. B.B. King’s interaction with the crowd is second-to-none, and his spirit is infectious. The fact that he made eye contact and tried to throw a pick to me (which another photog grabbed) was just a bonus. I know this seems like a short cop out write-up about him, but it’s very hard to put into words how I felt watching the man play. You just had to be there.

Oasis @ Virgin Festival - September 7, 2008

Despite the totally shocking Noel Gallagher on-stage assault debacle, Oasis put on a helluva show. It was the one performance I was especially looking forward to seeing all weekend. Last time (and first time, actually) I saw Oasis was at the Molson Amphitheatre with four other bands, for $10. The plan was to leave right before Oasis came on—at that point in time I was totally sick of Oasis and was only at the show to see the four openers. For some reason I stayed and they completely blew me away. By the time V Fest rolled around I was loving them again, so figured the experience would be even better.

Besides the fact that I was gleefully singing along to every song and loving it, what puts this show in the top ten is the class that the Gallagher brothers showed by coming back on stage to (pretty much) finish up their set after the attack during ‘Morning Glory’. Given the scary situation, I’m not sure I would have if it was me in that position, so I give them a whole lot of respect for being so professional. We ended up getting 17 songs–a good mix of new and old, which closed out with a cover of ‘I Am the Walrus’. We also got a great story to tell.

Stone Temple Pilots @ Edgefest - July 12, 2008

Stone Temple Pilots were the sole reason I wanted to trek all the way to Downsview to cover the very wet and muddy Edgefest this past summer. I’m not sure if it was more out of morbid curiosity to see if the show would be a train wreck or if it was for the nostalgia of my youth, but I was hoping for some good entertainment, and the newly reunited STP didn’t disappoint. Scott Weiland’s voice was, for the most part, bang on, and although I didn’t find his sex appeal nearly as, uh, appealing as I used to, he still has it. After shooting, I watched the show from my dry perch in the media tent with the biggest grin on my face, as they brought out hit after hit, ending with one of my faves, ‘Dead and Bloated’. I’m not sure if the STP reunion was a short-lived commitment, given that Weiland has recently released a solo album, but I’m certainly glad I got to experience it, since I didn’t get to see them live the first time around.

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