Category Archives: Alternative

Primarily Alt Rock

Of Montreal @ The Pheonix May 3rd, 2011

Hey all, Of Montreal, what a band, what a show! I had the pleasure of getting to see them and be allowed to take the camera in for photos only, no video, no audio and no flash. Fine by me, thats what I like, that’s what this site is all about!

Anyway, I had heard of this band from a pro photog’s website, Todd Owyoung at ishootshows.com (great concert photography site for inspiration, tips and more). The band looked like they put on a good show, visually as well as musically of course. You see, I had never heard of them. It just establishes my point that there are so many great bands out there to see and hear nowadays that it is difficult to keep up on everything. I did the myspace and website search to hear some of their stuff and was immediately dead-set on checking them out if they came to Toronto.

So May 3rd was it, at the Pheonix Concert Theatre in Toronto, which is a great venue. This was a very entertaining performance, I had a blast taking shots, meeting fans, enjoying the music, lots of fun for the band and the audience, with great stage antics by several non musician members, from a psuedo (aren’t they all) WWF wrestling match, to some more adult oriented entertainment ;),  reminded me of bands like the Tubes and Flaming Lips amongst others. I would put this in the ‘sexual-spastic-psychadelic fantazmical rock n’ roll show’ category if I had one like that. I am now a fan and will check them out again next time round.

I’ll let the pictures do the talkin’ now, enjoy

Mike

Your comments are encouraged and appreciated, thanks

Of Montreal

Of Montreal

Of Montreal

Of Montreal

Of Montreal

Of Montreal

You can check out the full gallery here

King Cobb Steelie @ Lee’s Palace April 16,2011

Went down to Lee’s Palace a couple weeks ago to see the 20th Anniversary of the 90’s dance, funk, rock, punk, trippie jam band King Cobb Steelie. Proceeds from the performance went to Ontario Hand & Voices, a organization and advocacy group helping parents with deaf & hearing challenged kids.

Not sure if I should label any specific genre on these guys, which is fine, cause they put on a great show, jamming out tunes from their broad repertoire.

Front man Kevan Byrne didn’t say too much or mention much about the fundraiser, didn’t have to, he just let the music do the talkin’.

A lot of diehard fans of the band came out and attempted to get their favorite songs played, some more successful then others, Kevan just smiled and nodded, happy to be playing with a tight group of musicians. I am sure the two encores kept everyone’s appetite satisfied.

King Cobb Steelie

King Cobb Steelie

Photo wise, the lighting was fairly dim, I don’t think anyone was doing lights, just a change here and there, so it was difficult trying to keep things sharp without cranking up the ISO. Which I had to do anyway just to get a exposure setting that I could use. Wide open @ f2.8, 1/60th – 1/125th and ISO at 3200 or 6400 for most of these shots. With the low light, it seemed a few photogs didn’t care about one of the basic etiquette rules for concert photography, No Flash. Okay, there will always be the camera phones and point & shoot pocket camera flashes going off, but using a flash on a DSLR blasting out full power seemed to ruin the mood the band was working at.

Kevan Byrne

Kevan Byrne

Al Okada

Al Okada

Tamara Williamson

Tamara Williamson

check my gallery page for the complete set