Telling the Story of a Show
Opportunity and challenge: Shooting two favorite bands in the same month
As a photographer, I’m often asked, “What do you shoot?”
My response: “I shoot what I see.”
And while that statement may seem pithy, it is true. Photography for me is about feel, about capturing a moment in time — whether it is a person, place, or thing. (The same applies to the best writing as well.)
Live events — especially concerts (as well as dance and theater) — are full of opportunities to capture feelings in those fleeting moments, which adds exponentially to my enjoyment. That said, many of these events are held in conditions where lighting is haphazard or poor and you are dealing with constant barriers (audience members who are there to watch and could care less what you’re doing, time constraints, and sometimes a lack of up close access).
A majority of the concerts I shoot, with occasional exceptions, are in small to midsized clubs and bars. Many artists restrict photographers to the first three songs, which means you have only 10 to 15 minutes to produce a strong set of images that represent the event. Also, while it’s tempting to focus on the singers, I try to make sure I catch all of the band members if I can (drummers can be tough, depending on the size of their kids and who is in front of them.
Over the past month, I’ve had the chance to capture two of my all-time favorites — Dave Alvin and X — in shows at local venues. Alvin, the principal songwriter for The Blasters, went out on his own in the mid 1980s. I have seen him perform — solo, with his various bands, and with offshoot groups such as The Knitters, The Pleasure Barons, and The Flesh Eaters — more than any other artist. I also interviewed him last year when he was promoting a book of collected works.
Alvin has fought multiple bouts of cancer since 2020, and I worried that I would not get to see him live again. But last month, after a clean bill of health, he returned to the East Coast and opened a fall tour at The Birchmere in Alexandria, Va., with Jimmie Dale Gilmore and his group, The Guilty Ones. Here are some of my favorite photos from that show. (Click on the image to see it full size.)
Earlier this week, I went to the 9:30 Club in Washington, D.C., to photograph X, the iconic Los Angeles punk band whose music I’ve listened to for 40 years. I have never seen the original lineup live — guitarist Billy Zoom left before I went to my first X show in 1987 — and this was an opportunity I could not pass up.
It’s hard to describe how much influence X and other L.A.-based groups from that era have had in shaping my music taste. X, The Blasters, and Los Lobos merged and melded music styles and genres — country, rock, blues, rockabilly — while writing storytelling songs that were smart and thought provoking, at least to my ears. That they were contemporaries of another favorite band — The Replacements — that never could crack into the mainstream only made me appreciate them more.
For a long time, I could not articulate why these groups meant so much. Now I recognize that it was those bands — members of The Blasters and X have worked together on various projects and offshoot groups over the years — helped me see how music could build community in a way that wasn’t prepackaged and homogenized for the masses.
I have shot enough shows at The Birchmere and at the 9:30 Club to know the hurdles I’m facing, and fortunately neither Alvin nor X enforced the three song rule, which allowed me to move back and capture more than the usual 40 to 60 images I normally get.
Below are a handful of my favorites from the X show.
You can see more from the two shows — as well as most of the concerts I’ve shot over the years — by going to my Flickr site here. As always, thoughts and comments welcome.
Your second(ish) paragraph really resonated with me. While I haven't been able to put my finger on it the way you have, I think what you wrote describes very well why I am drawn to sports photography