are animal sacrifices legal?

I don’t know … but Motley Crue did one Monday night. 😉

The concert was smokey as fuck … I’ve never seen a smoke machine put in to better use.

The motherfucker in the cowboy pants … asked my friend Richard to make a photo of him before the show started when there were no lights on.

“It’s too dark man. Sorry.”

I wish I got his email … wudda sent him this. 😉

Despite that nasty ass smoke machine, which made it almost impossible to make photos, I got a couple good photos.

His mic stand his fucking wicked …

Anyways … back to the animal sacrifice … I dunno if it was a real rooster … I think it was …

It was flapping its wings around.

I dunno how they killed it … it was very fucking foggy, remember?

But after the first song finished … Richard turned to me and showed me his arm which had a small line of blood on it.

Turns out it was the roosters. 😉

I met Richard at the Roger Waters show a couple weeks ago … and then we shot Motley Crue and Aerosmith together Monday night. We’ve become quite good friends since then. A very cool guy. He’s the one that takes his F5 and a roll of black and whites to concerts.

I thought that was pretty cool.

He also had an exhibition yesturday … very cool. A Tragically Hip tribute type thing …

He’s shot over 100 of their concerts … as well as promos and CD inlays.

P.S. — Check out Snoop Dogg’s Myspace …  and listen to “Vato.”

😉

Fucking wicked song.

He was very cool to Richard and I … gave us a lot of eye contact and attention …

But the smoke killed it …

… for the most part at least.

Anyone a Tommy Lee fan?

Oh … and this is for my friend Michaella:

She knows what it is. 😉

After the first three songs for Motley Crue … we went back to the press space …

Chilled.

More photographers started coming for Aerosmith.

Including one named Dar. It was her first arena concert shoot. She was really excited.

Haven’t seen her photos yet, but from what she showed me on the back of her camera, they looked cool!

Oh yeah … now whenever I go to shoot concerts … I usually cut the line … cause why the fuck would I wait in line, right?

Monday night I went up to the security guard,

“I’m with press.”

“You have to go down to Gate 2A, but go wait in line first.”

Go wait in line first?

I should have made a photo of the motherfucker and told him I was going to give it to his boss so his sorry ass would get fired.

Of course I got through after I approached him a second time.

Whatever.

Aerosmith was so full of energy and spirit.

Such amazing performers and musicians.

Even though my lens was fucking up … I noticed that after I got home … it had some focusing problems. Not the first time either … the problem has come up a couple times, but I didn’t do anything about it. I’ll be taking it to Henry’s this weekend to get it checked out.

I’m fucking tired … kinda sleepy … so I’ll let the photos speak for themselves.

They were amazing with a capital A. 😉

And go listen to Mindless Self Indulgence’s Big Poppa cover.

I also did a shoot for an Italian model … she needed headshots for an agent in Italy … and they’re apparently being sent off to Prada. Pretty cool. I wonder if she’ll “make it.” She’s in Toronto for another ten months … and then going back to Italy …

But more Aerosmith photos …

A Toronto Sun guy was there as well … and there was a point when Mr. Tyler took a bottle of water and spat it out on to the front row audience … and I’m pretty sure Mr. Toronto Sun guy got wet a little bit too.

I dunno how impressed he was with that.

But hey, he can probably sell his clothes on eBay now that they have Steven’s saliva on em. 😉

we don’t need no education

The last four days have been the most hectic I’ve had in a while …

I shot Roger Waters on Wednesday night, then Thursday I shot my friend’s mom’s wedding. Friday I went to the best party I’ve ever been to (even though I’m not really a party animal) and Saturday I went to another party.

Roger Waters.

Honestly … he still has it.

I was never really a big Pink Floyd fan. I mean, I knew and loved their really big hits … like “Another Brick in the Wall Pt. 2,” “Wish You Were Here,” “Money,” etc … but I was always more into the more modern music scene like Korn and Slipknot.

But fuck.

This guy … as well as his entire stage band …

W-fucking-ow.

The whole concert was a light show …

As well as an amazing musical experience.

But that’s a given.

Seems like the light show bit is too.
Sorry Chris by the way. I’ll bring a nice 8×10 to school for ya. 😉

I mean … fuck. You’d think that at 60 something … he’d kinda “wear down” …

But no … he still had every bit of energy in him. He even had the typical Pink Floyd flying blown up pig.

Twas fucking cool. Also had a blown up astronaut.

And he cussed Dubya out in one of his songs! “Leaving Beirut” … an amazing song and performed even more amazingly. They had a cartoon drawn … cause it was written about an experience he had in Beirut … meeting with an Arabic family and how nice they were … that was going on at the backdrop, and the words in the cartoon were the lyrics to the song.

A-fucking-mazing.


He played a lot of amazing Floyd songs …

All the ones I knew too. 😉

It was pretty wicked seeing him perform Another Brick in the Wall Pt. 2 … one of my old bands did a cover of that for fun. And my all-time favorite band, Korn, covered it too. And it was really cool to see all the old(er) people singing “Hey, teacher, leave us kids alone.”

You could see their “inner-child” as it were.

Anyways … the shooting process was pretty standard.

First three songs, no flash, from the pit. Twas good. Standard is good. 😉

I met a really fucking cool photographer … Richard … He had his F5 with him and a roll of black and white.

I thought that was cool.

And a guy from the Toronto Star was there … with whom I shot my first gig with ever … again, my all-time favorite band, Korn! It’s funny how the first “big” thing I shot was that of my favorite band.

Oh yeah, there were frequent explosions at the Roger Waters show. 😉

Very fucking cool.

It went very well … I was really happy with the concert.

Not only the “work” part of it …

But the actual concert … was FUCKING amazing.

Better than the Korn one.

That’s like a dagger in the heart to say. 😉

Haha just joking.

Anyways, I’m fucking tired … been resizing/editing the wedding photos for the past couple hours …

I’ll post some of them another time.

And this post doesn’t do justice to the show … it was FUCKING AMAAAAZING.

But I’m wayyy to tired.

So let the photos speak for my absence of words.

Mr. Wyclef Jean & the One and Only Shakira

Before I even start … I just wanna say that Shakira is a fucking rock star.

I don’t care if she doesn’t play rock music …

She’s more of a rock star than any Good Charlotte motherfucker. 😉

P.S. — I’ve got “Hips Don’t Lie,” “La Tortura,” and “Don’t Bother” by Miss Shakira on loop. 😉

And I’m totally in love with “If I was President,” and “Take me as I am” by Mr. Jean.

Those are pretty much the three songs I’ve been listening to for the past four hours.

So firstly … I just want to thank Kathy … from Live Nation for ALL of her help … I seriously cannot thank her enough for all she’s done for me.

Alright … here comes the the diatribe. 😉

I got an email in my inbox saying that I was approved to shoot Wyclef and Shakira … got the call times, everything is looking really good. I was almost late for the Wyclef call time … the fucking subway had another friggin delay (I think we’re on like 2,000,003 right now) … and I really thought I was gunna miss it. Got there right at 7:15 … maybe 7:14 … maybe 7:16 …

Point is … I was on time.

I don’t think I’ve ever been so grateful for being on time.

Ever.

So I cut the fucking line (I’m surprised nobody has ever yelled at me for doing that) … get past the security … they don’t even give me a hard time anymore. I had the email and a piece of ID ready to show them that I’m not just some dumb kid with a half blonde/half black mohawk trying to “get in.” But I just said “I’m with press,” and they must have recognized my weird-ass hair by now since they just smiled and said “Right on downstairs.”

It’s getting really easy now. 😉

I get downstairs to the press table … meet Kathy, sign the artist photo release form … and I was awaiting my new friend Anita from Chart … but she didn’t end up shooting Wyclef. Quite a shame … he was fucking amazing.

Words cannot explain.

But she does private photo shoots with Chris Martin, so it’s all good. 😉

She does very very wicked studio photoshoots and portrait work … go check her out.

So anyways … there’s 3 other photographers shooting Wyclef, one from Globe & Mail … another from a Spanish magazine (Shakira, go figure), and my newest friend, Andrew from an online magazine called The Gate. Very cool little webzine, check them out.

Turned out that he also shot Depeche Mode with me … but we didn’t talk there.

Twas cool to find out though. 😉

And the guy from the Spanish magazine had the same setup as me … a Nikon D70s with the Nikkor 18-200mm.

So anyways … we get escorted by another Live Nation sweetheart, Michaella (who by the way is one of the other coolest people I met at the Sean Paul/Mariah Carey show) to the photo pit to shoot Wyclef.

We got the first three songs to shoot.

No flash.

Standard shit. 😉

This guy was spinning for about 10 minutes before Wyclef and the rest of the band came out …

He was pretty good … he was spinning behind his back, and with his shirt over his face and stuff …

It was really cool.

I really like these types of photos … interaction … with the audience and the performer.

I dunno … I, personally, like em.

P.S. — I hate having to scale my photos down here … so right mouse click –> view image to see the full thing. Fucking 700 pixel width doesn’t fit in this blog.

If anyone knows how to make the whole blog wider, holla at me. 😉

Wy first started out by freestyling in five different languages.

Looks like he was on #2 … which was Spanish.

There was French, English, Spanish, Chi-fucking-nese, and the third one I can’t remember.

Very cool stuff.

We had a very cool spot to shoot at … there was a ramp on the left side of the stage and we were shooting from there.

I thought it was a stellar place.

I haven’t been able to walk around the photo pit since Korn …

But it’s all good … the band or performer usually does enough running around the stage. 😉

Some more performer-audience interaction. 😉

I think during the second song … he told everyone to stand up … told everyone to dance …

But there was this elderly woman … who was sitting.

So Wyclef stopped the song …

Ran the fuck down the ramp …

Went over to her …

Asked her why she wasn’t dancing.

And then took her hand … and danced with her.

Where-the-fuck-else do you see something like that?

Honestly.

Interaction is so fucking important for musicians.

Shooting concerts is very interesting for me, as a musician … since I see what works … and what doesn’t.

Very fucking interesting.

After that, he started walking around the entire venue … without any security guards I may add … and talking and dancing with people in the audience.

Let me ask you again …

Where the fuck else?

Speaking of security guards …

Wyclef started his third song with “You know how many security guards 50 Cent has?”

“50 Cent has 50 security guards.”

“Do you know how many security guards Jay-Z has?”

“Jay-Z has 300 security guards.”

“Do you know how many security guards Wyclef has?”

“Wyclef has 1 motherfucking security guard.”

And then he came on stage.

Totally fucking serious … with the I’ll-chop-your-balls-off-if-you-look-at-me-the-wrong-way look on his face.

And then the music started …

And it turns out that the guy can dance.

Him and Wyclef danced the entire song away …

Again … incorporating your security guard into your concert in a very interesting, funny and exciting way …

Where the fuck else?

Really, REALLY loved Wyclef …

So after the first three Wyclef songs aka the best three songs fucking ever …

We all went back to the press table / lounge area and hung out …

Kathy’s neece and friend were here visiting from Ottawa … talked to them for a while … they were pretty cool!

About 3 or so more photographers started coming in at the call time for Shakira … along with my friend Anita from Chart and some other people, one from Toronto Star, who I was shooting Mariah with the week before.

Michaella took us in again …

We got the second and third song to shoot miss Shakira, and from the same spot as Wyclef.

As soon as the first song was over, we started walking towards the pit …

It feels good walking down the aisle … everyone looking at you as you walk by them, trying to figure out why the fuck you’re going up to the stage … and knowing that you’re about to capture time.

It’s a great feeling.

I’m not sure which song she started out with … but I do know that the third song was “Don’t Bother,” one of my favorites. 😉

This was taken during the first song … when she wasn’t playing the guitar.

I really love Shakira … if you don’t, then keep it to yourself … I don’t really care.

She’s an amazing SINGER, DANCER, and overall PERFORMER … so shove it. 😉

I bet she could belly dance circles around any other person.

Sing them too. 😉

Shooting her went by very fast …

Two songs is a lot shorter than you think …

But I managed to take about 200 or more photos of her … I filled a 3GB memory card with Shakira and Wyclef.

So glad I did … I ended up getting over 40 amazing shots of Shakira.

And the rest didn’t “make it” because they were too similar to the others … not because they weren’t sharp or ill-composed, or under/over exposed.

Well, there were a few of those … 😉

But mostly due to similarities.

The lighting was AMAZING … the colors turned out sooo fucking well.

I didn’t even wanna strip the colors …

They were just a part of the show as anything else.

There are always exceptions though. 😉

Common … I need at least one black and white frame from the night.

She was very generous with the photographers …

Gave us a lot of good shots …

That our publications or wire services will like …

You know what I’m talking about …

The “eye contact” shot …

The reviewer from the Toronto Star said she made more eye contact with her own cameras than with the audience.

May be true, but I used it to get one of my favorite photos from the night. 😉

Everyone put their camera’s down at that time …

But I was clicking away … 😉

I love shooting for myself …

I got the good eye contact shots …

I got the nice color photos …

But I love shooting for myself when all that is said and done …

And being a little different.

Do I care that my friend Anita is in the photo?

Of course not … I wanted her to be … 😉

I love the camera body with a photo of Shakira on playback resting on the ramp too.

So back to how I started this …

Shakira is a fucking rock star.

I don’t care about the yoga pants …

Or the bare feet …

She’s a rock star … 😉

A very nice one at that.

And one who can play like fucking crazy.

Last night was amazing …

Words cannot sum it up.

I felt like shouting on the subway on my way home … at 11pm …

I was so happy.

Amazing concert.

Wonderful performers …

Wyclef, Shakira …

And overall … just wow.

Met even more wicked people.

And Kathy asked my permission to print a photo and frame it for her office at Live Nation. 😉

Of course I said yes.

I’m interested to see which of the 40 I sent her she’ll want up on the office wall. 😉

Best concert I have ever seen …

And definately the best concert I have ever shot.

I don’t think I’ve ever been happier after a shoot.

Gracias, y hasta luego. 😉