A five-night NYE run for the books! (Dallas/Atlanta/Nashville)
Winter 2013/2014
It's no secret that some of the best shows of the year happen in those final few days of the year, with New Years Eve usually containing the down-right best performance of an artist's entire year. So instead of drinking champagne and popping confetti with friends, I'm running around and clicking my camera's shutter like crazy.
This year Lights All Night festival in Dallas, TX fell on the 27th and 28th of December so I decided to start things leading up to NYE there. It was a two day, all electronic festival, with major headliners like Deadmau5, Kaskade, Major Lazer and Krewella. Starting the 5-night run off w a festival was probably not the best idea but the energy at LAN is hard to match anywhere in the country and we had the whole aLIVE Coverage crew back together so obviously I wouldn't miss it.
After a couple sleepless nights in Texas I was back home in Atlanta and shooting for one of my favorites, STS9. I really feel that STS9, being from Atlanta, plays their hearts out in the old downtown Church otherwise known as The Tabernacle. The five-piece really felt like they were playing for the fans this go round as they brought out different special guests both shows I attended (Dec. 29th and 30th) and covered songs that rarely ever hit the set-list or get played live. Seeing so many familiar old faces and shooting Saxton's lights was just what I needed to even things out and prepare for the following night.
Then NYE (which probably deserves its own blog post) took me to Nashville, TN with the main task of getting a 360 degree family photo for the heavy hitter Bassnectar. His NYE show is unlike any other in the sense that instead of playing on a normal 180 degree stage, he sets up his booth/stage in the middle of a completely sold out 12,000 person arena, so the fans are a full 360 degrees surrounding him. I was the sole photographer brought on to capture this night for him and I admit I was just a little bit nervous. If capturing a concert in the middle of an arena isn't hard enough getting this 360 degree family photo that I was hired to do was certainly no easy task. After meeting with Lorin (aka Bassnectar) before the show and filling him in on the specifics of the shot, I started to feel a little better while at the same time praying for the best. The show absolutely flew by while shooting from different angles, high and low the whole time leading up to the last few minutes where I waited stage side to climb into the elevated, LED-laced DJ booth. After taking a few rounds of fish eye shots I felt that my job was done. A few edits backstage later confirmed that we in fact got the shot and would be able to show the fans something completely next level as far as concert photography goes.
Here are some of my top images from those 5 nights, in order of date/time they were photographed.
