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Nickelback

As usual...guess who got tabbed to go shoot another concert in the Falls.

Me. Yea.

Now, going to a concert is awesome. You don't really have that many rules, except rock out and don't get killed.

Photographers on the other hand....it's a bit of a different deal.

First of all...as I'm walking up to the Kay Yeager, loaded down with a laptop and camera gear...I immediately notice the humorous mix of teen angst rockers and bikers in spandex. That makes me laugh more than you know.

So...my first move is to head to the Will Call window to pick up my press kit. That usually includes my all-access pass and tickets to get in the door. Now, if I have an "all access" pass...you'd think that I wouldn't really need a ticket right? I know...it doesn't make sense to me either.

Okay, so I pick up my stuff...even though it's not in my name. The boss man thought he'd be shooting the concert, so I had to convince the ticket folks that I was really shooting it for the paper. As if hauling around 2 cameras, a huge lens and a laptop bag wasn't evidence enough.

So I'm in the door...and my first order of business is to find somebody in charge so I can get my rules list.

Yeah...I have rules at a concert. Usually they are: Stand here. No Flash. Only shoot the first three songs. Leave.

The three songs bit is so that all the super cool pyros at the end of the show are a "secret" and that the people who will see the show in the coming days/weeks are "surprised." That's rarely the case however. But they are rules to be followed.

What concerned me more than anything was where do I stand? Usually, concerts at the KYC are not general admission...meaning, they have a dedicated seating structure. Nickelback was not so. There were 1000s of people crammed together on the floor as close to the stage as possible. This concerned me greatly, as I'm carrying about $10,000 worth of equipment on my shoulders.

So, I'm on an immediate search for the tour manager. He's the only one who knows exactly where he wants me to be. Not only for the best vantage point for photos, but also a measure of safety in the throng of crowd-surfing rockers.

It didn't take long to find him....only about 30 minutes. This really isn’t that bad honestly. All I had to do was stand in the wrong spot and look like I was taking pictures when I shouldn't have been. Works like a charm every time.

So this tour manager, tattooed and very large, actually has a diagramed map for me. After berating me for a few minutes (okay, we were both short with each other), I made him understand that I was TRYING to get his attention so that I could find out straight from the horses mouth what was going on.

Same general rules as usual....3 songs, no flash, stand at the front of the page only. Okay good...I know what I'm supposed to do to not get arrested. That's a huge comfort to me. I finally started to relax.

So...Hoobastank finally takes the stage, and the shooting commences. Three songs go by pretty quickly...even though I fired off about 200 shots. Low lighting and constant color changes make it necessary to shoot that much just to make sure that I get a couple decent shots and emotion good enough to make the paper. Red, then blue light...back and forth. Great if you're just watching the show...difficult if you're me.

Three songs and I'm heading up to the TRN suite to e-mail the photos back to the paper as quickly as possible. I'm a huge Clearwire fan, and have my whole setup working like a dream in a few minutes. Because of deadlines, they have to run a photo of Hoobastank in the paper. Nickelback just takes the stage to late for the newspaper...but they can run pictures online.

After going through all those shots, picking out a few, and sending them to the office...I grab a bottle of water and head back to the floor for the main act. With a few minutes to spare.

Finally...Nickelback gets set to hit the stage. And it scares the crap out of everybody in the building.

All of a sudden, and without ANY kind of warning...the lights go black and there is a massive explosion. I mean, like something went wrong kind of explosion. I was facing the other way when it went off, and I expected to turn around to flaming debris and was pulling my camera to my face to shoot it.

It scared me....badly. Just like Nickelback wanted. That's how they roll.

Any who...the first three songs were really just a blur, I actually can't remember if I stopped shooting after the second or third. Went back to the suite, e-mailed more pictures. And viola...it's over.

I didn't even get to enjoy but about 2 songs the entire night. But they rocked.

Posted by Jason Palmer at 1:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)