Avett Ruminations part 2
In early March, I went to two Avett Brothers' shows, two very different experiences, highlighting the dilemma I face in deciding whether to attend a concert for the music or for photography.
There is magic being in the presence of talented people making music in the moment, and I've always approached it as an immersive event. When touring with The Dead, the music and dance was more important than anything, so I usually stayed in the hallway or lawn because there was more room to spin. Now I don't dance as much (actually, The Grateful Dead live show has proven to be the only place I will dance with no reservations or self-consciousness), and prefer being as close to the sound as possible and wrapping myself in the physically emotive waves created in front of me.
Photography takes me out of that space and has me looking at the play of light and the visible expressive emotion of musicians who are in their own moment. The combination of pure unfiltered engagement and vivid light is incredibly attractive to me, and I always find myself looking for those flashes of scenes on stage.
For the first show, in Portland, ME at the new Cumberland Civic Center, I had a photo pass so I knew going in that I would be spending my time focusing on capturing the light. Often times a photo pass gets you access in the front of the stage for the first three songs and that's it. Some venues go to great lengths to kick you out at that point, but in this case the staff was friendly and allowed me to shoot from anywhere in the arena for the whole show, for which I was grateful. Since I'm pretty familiar with how the Avetts run a show, I could pick my place for certain songs and get as many different angles as I could.
As the Avetts have grown, so has the elaborateness of their stage show. These days they have a couple of trucks with them to cart around the lighting gear. Their lighting designer, Pete Schroth, tweaks his layouts every night, it seems, keeping things interesting for himself and for the audience. He tends to put a lot of lights behind the band shining out at the crowd, which works great for me since I love backlighting.
It's a far cry from house Fresnels with poorly applied gels and makes for fun photography.
This freedom with the camera meant that I never spent more than one song in any one place, and wandered everywhere, constantly looking for vantage points to shoot particular lighting or action. Pretty Girl from Chile I knew would provide a scene of Seth and Joe alone on the catwalk, so I positioned myself for that.
I was disappointed by the lack of "special mic" songs like Murder or Ballad, since I wanted to get a shot of the isolated individual or duet at the end of the catwalk for a whole song. First time in 40+ shows that they haven't had a solo/duet song and they choose to do it on this full access night. Figures. A good night for pictures anyway.
Six days later I saw them at the TD Freaking Garden. Tickets to the big time indeed. I didn't bother asking for a photo pass for this show since I was pretty sure security would be tighter, so I went in with the intent of just enjoying the show. This turned out to have been a wise choice. In Portland, the band had seemed a little reserved, rarely venturing to the front of the stage, but Boston loosened them up and they were bouncing all over the place. The setlist was better too. Portland was lacking in non-standard songs, but the Garden delivered a new song for me, Operator, which was nice, and personal faves Gimme a Kiss, Backwards with Time, and the ever lovely Please Pardon Yourself. Not having my camera meant I could lose myself in the music and words with abandon. I only pulled out my phone for a couple of quick snapshots. At least I got my "special mic" picture.
It also drove home the realization that the majority of people at Avett shows these days are there to hear Live and Die, I'n'Love'n'You or Another is Waiting. There was a notable drop in audience awareness and participation during Please Pardon Yourself, so I can see why the band doesn't do songs like Pretty Girl from Locust any more, because they're in a different place, and their audience comes from a different place. But it also reinforced the fact that they still put on a damn fine show, and put their whole body and soul into the performance, and for that I'm thankful.
Setlists
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3/3/2014 Portland, ME Shame Die, Die, Die Talk on Indolence Thank God I'm a Country Boy Live and Die Laundry Room Old Joe Clark Distraction At the Beach HFOD/RFOP Another is Waiting Skin and Bones Salina I and Love and You Pretty Girl from Chile The Fall Vanity Never Been Alive Paranoia Go to Sleep E:Fireball Mail Will the Circle Be Unbroken Goodnight Sweetheart |
3/8/2014 Boston, MA Another is Waiting Gimme a Kiss Pretty Girl from Chile Laundry Room I Killed Sally's Lover Salina I and Love and You Spiggor Peach Down with the Shine Thank God I'm a Country Boy HFOD/RFOP Murder in the City Operator Backwards with Time Please Pardon Yourself Talk on Indolence Part From Me Paul Newman vs the Demons Vanity Kick Drum Go to Sleep Skin and Bones E:Live and Die Will the Circle Be Unbroken Goodnight Sweetheart |
Instagraming old pictures
Instagram and all those assorted phone camera apps have made it far easier to quickly capture an image and share it, but they've also added an approach to editing that I've been exploring with some of my older pictures that weren't take with my phone. It feels a little like cheating, it's not even Latergramming really, but it allows, for me at least, a little more freedom to radically adjust the various levels, colors, clarity and whatnot that is so easy on the phone and not so much in Photoshop. So I can take a picture that I like:
play with it, saturate that puppy, sharpen things up, and change the crop, and get something pretty different:
Maybe it's just me, at this level of comfort and experience with editing, but I feel much more comfortable tweaking the heck out of picture on my phone than I do inside of Lightroom or Photoshop. Maybe also it's the expectation of "serious" pictures that those imply for me, and the phone pictures are more "work with what you have" images. Sometimes having restrictions help focus since you don't have the distraction of having tons of options. With this bridge, I might have taken more time and more exposures, but I don't think it would have necessarily been any more satisfying:
I also have trouble cropping out pictures that I take with my big camera because I generally shoot with a certain view in mind, so the picture I get is mostly what I wanted, and again, the phone apps let me ignore that:
vs:
I'm not convinced that all that saturation and clarity is better, though the size of mobile devices makes it easier for a small, concise picture with lots of intensity to be seen, where the focus is on one particular aspect rather than the original composition:
By the way, these were all adjusted with Camera+, which I find easier and more flexible to use than Instagram, for editing at least.
Gaslight Tinkers
I first met Peter Siegel twenty years ago as crew on the Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, where he sang songs and played guitar for kids and adults on sails. Ends up he's still doing that, frequently in the band Gaslight Tinkers based in Pioneer Valley. I saw them the Parlor Room in Northampton, MA, playing their blend of world beat, traditional fiddle tunes, French-Canadian, folky, rocky, but mostly just good, music. Lots of people dancing and some fine performances.
Peter Siegel - guitar and whatnot, Garrett Sawyer - bass, Zoë Darrow - fiddles, Dave Noonan - drums.
www.thegaslighttinkers.com
Let there be songs to fill the air
Robert Hunter at the Palace Theater, Stafford Springs, CT 10/3/2013
The first time I saw Robert Hunter was November 9, 1990. He had just released his book of lyrics, Box of Rain, and there was a book signing as well as a show at the old Ritz in NYC. The Grateful Dead were still touring and it was the end of my busiest touring year, with 25 shows, so it wasn't like there was a dearth of Dead tunes in my life, but I was still astounded, as his show went on, by how many songs he had penned. Most of his performance was Dead tunes (you can hear the show at http://archive.org/details/RobertHunter1990-11-09.Nak300CP4.Fitzy.Keo.123530.Flac1644), and it blew my mind that he was responsible for these lines that had become such an integral part of my life. I'd seen Jerry (and Bobby) sing those words, but to see them from the fount was so cool.
23 years later, I got a chance to see him again, in a small club 30 minutes from my house. I don't listen to the Dead near as much as I used to; there are a few tapes that have been played consistently but there's a lot of material that I haven't listened to or thought about since seeing it live. So I wasn't sure what to expect, though I knew I had to go. Everyone was a little older (insert Touch of Grey line here) but essentially the same bunch of freaks. Felt right at home.
Then Hunter came out and did the same thing he'd done 23 years ago, only this time the memories of the songs hadn't been touched for 20 years, since I had last heard them, so they immediately brought back the strong visceral consciousness of Jerry belting out "A lovely view of heaven but I'd rather be with you", dancing on a lawn or in a hallway, surrounded by the music and the words slicing truth through the air. "Once in a while you can get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right."
So "Mama, Mama, many worlds I've come since I first left home" it may be, but those songs still occupy a huge part of my psyche and while there will be nothing like a Grateful Dead concert, it's nice to be able to visit those times: "Dust off those rusty strings just one more time, gonna make 'em shine."
Full set of photos at http://kcjonez.zenfolio.com/robert_hunter
Avett Ruminations
A Philosophical Review - Boston Pavilion 9/16/2012
After listening to The Carpenter for a couple of weeks straight, I went back to my All Avett All the Time playlist, which is almost all from the studio albums, and Colorshow came up, which I hadn't heard in a while. With fresh ears, the full band sound of the song really struck me. It's got everything the current live lineup has: piano, drums, electric guitar. These guys haven't changed over the years; their live show capabilities have just expanded to include all the instruments and sounds they've always wanted to do. In years past, Colorshow was played with just the three acoustic instruments because that was all they had, and it was awesome. Now, the stage is getting crowded with people (not Typhoon-like crowded, but they're getting there) and they can make all this noise that they've had in them with no way to express at a show. Now they can.
Sunday night at the Boston Pavilion this newfound ability was in full force. With Bob back in the rotation most of the time (yay! for so many reasons!) they can have Paul on keys and front six musicians, and holy cow what a sound. All those elements that they threw into their albums but could never do live, all that almost metal sound, the screaming electric guitar and pounding bass; these boys rocked. Which worked really well within the pretty large pavilion. It takes a lot of sound to fill that space. And as I was listening, I wasn't sure how the "old" Avetts would have done in that space. They were as loud as they could be with just the upright, banjo and guitar, but with this new arsenal they can so easily project their sound to thousands of people, with serious impact. Their acoustic show worked really well in the smaller venues because the audience was right there, with all the energy within arm's reach. Now people are watching from 200' or more feet away and it's harder to connect. I really noticed it during the quieter songs; the sound was clearly coming from a smaller place right in front, while the electric songs were all encompassing. Having been up front so many times, I didn't notice that difference as much, but it was readily apparent halfway back in the arena. Trio songs like Paranoia and Shame were good and loud, of course, but songs like Head Full of Doubt and Paul Newman were really good with the expanded lineup, with The Fall being my favorite old song with the new twist.
The "special mic" songs seemed most difficult to translate to the larger space. It forces people pay attention (and make the drunk obnoxious ones even more noticeable), and the strength of the songs was as apparent even though I was so far away, but it was clear that all the sound was coming from a small point on stage, and the echoey nature of the pavilion swallowed everything up. As you can see in the top picture, tiny Scott was lost in the immensity, and he sounded as far away as he looks. Which is the nature of that type of mic; it's not designed to be sung into from an inch away, but is more of an ambient mic. But the contrast with the electric tunes was stark.
Regardless of sound and song, I had a fantastic time. I didn't see Cedar Lane for the first time in I think two years, and I kind of missed it, but the song selection was good, with a couple of tasty choices (Weight of Lies and especially If it's the Beaches) and the pleasure of hearing some of the new songs. G. Love was a surprise. I don't know when they rehearsed, but it wasn't at soundcheck. They sounded really good and were clearly were having fun, as was I.
Paranoia
Will you return
And it spread
Eleanor
Colorshow
Weight of Lies
Distraction #74
Live and Die
February 7
Salina
January Wedding
Go To sleep
Down with the shine
Love like the movies
When I drink
Sanguine
Laundry room
Old Joe Clark
Paul Newman vs the Demons
Murder in the City
The Fall with g love
Milk and Sugar with g love
Shame
Kick drum
I and Love and You
Encore:
If It's the Beaches
Head Full of Doubt
Talk on Indolence
