Bless The Fall put on an explosive set at House Of Blues.  Opening for Atreyu, these guys pulled all the rock star moves, including guitar whips, and climbing up on risers and cabinets for solos. 

Photographer’s Notes: Shooting this show took a great deal of patience, as the band was quite animate the whole set.  I had to bump ISO up to 6400 just to keep shutter speeds fast enough.  Combined with the oft-erratic stage lighting at House Of Blues, I had to exercise patience for the light to be bright enough just long enough to minimize motion blur, as well as avoiding washed out colors.

When shooting concerts, I always try to get at least one good photo of the drummer.  Drummer’s need photo love, too, afterall. Catching Atreyu at House Of Blues on tour to support their latest album, I couldn’t help but be impressed by singer/drummer Brandon Saller’s custom triple-kick(!) drum set.

Naturally as a result, I felt inclined to get more than just one photo of the drummer. Even when I made sure to catch some shots of the other members, the giant set tended to dominate much of the background.

]]> http://www.justingillphoto.com/blog/atreyu-house-of-blues-chicago/feed 1 http://www.justingillphoto.com/blog/gwar-house-of-blues-chicago-2010?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=gwar-house-of-blues-chicago-2010 http://www.justingillphoto.com/blog/gwar-house-of-blues-chicago-2010#comments Tue, 02 Nov 2010 23:46:41 +0000 Justin Gill http://www.justingillphoto.com/blog/?p=329

GWAR brought another set of sci-fi horror metal to the House Of Blues the other night, and having photographed GWAR at House of Blues before, at first I was worried about the stage lighting treatment — excessive backlighting, billowing fog, rapid-fire strobes, and deep colored gels.  But after the first song, I realized my best bet was to embrace it as part of the “GWAR experience” and shoot accordingly.  Being that their show is pretty much a horror B-movie set to metal music, you can’t expect much more. 

Photographer’s Notes: While I started with the wide zoom, I mostly rocked the 85mm 1.8 for a few reasons:  One, while I don’t particularly mind getting doused by fake blood, I had a job to do.  And even though my camera and lens were covered in plastic, I was still doing a lot of ducking and dodging, so I needed to step back from the action a little.  Two, I wanted to isolate the elaborate costumes from all the environmental clutter (set design, mic stands, stage props, etc).  So the combination on wide aperture and mid-range telephoto focal length gave a nice amount of background blur.

It must be both exciting and daunting to open for a band such as GWAR, but The Casualties, a street punk band going 20 years strong, were pretty capable of rising to the challenge.  They weren’t timid in bringing the raucous to the crowd at House Of Blues.

]]> http://www.justingillphoto.com/blog/the-casualties-house-of-blues-chicago/feed 0 http://www.justingillphoto.com/blog/preview-gwar-house-of-blues?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=preview-gwar-house-of-blues http://www.justingillphoto.com/blog/preview-gwar-house-of-blues#comments Wed, 27 Oct 2010 16:13:35 +0000 Justin Gill http://www.justingillphoto.com/blog/?p=323

I wanted to post a quick shot from last night’s GWAR performance.  Full set coming soon within the week, but I just had to post a teaser photo, in anticipation for the Halloween weekend.

Hope everyone has fun!

Shooting As I Lay Dying helped me realize a new rule regarding rock photography: The size of the drum kit is directly proportional to how much you want to make sure to grab shots of the drummer. Some of my favorite shots from their stop at House Of Blues were of drummer Jordan Mancino, who on more than one occasion stole the spotlight with extended drum solos. That’s not to say the rest of the band didn’t do their best to keep up.

Seattle metal band Demon Hunter stopped at Chicago’s House Of Blues on their tour supporting their new release The World Is A Thorn.

They put out a heavy set to prep the crowd for headlining act As I Lay Dying.

Even though I wanted to see just how brutal a performance Cannibal Corpse would put on at House Of Blues, I was really interested to see opening thrash band Skeletonwitch.

Hailing from Athens, Ohio, I’ve seen these guys play a couple dive bars a few years ago in my hometown Columbus. They’ve since moved up to bigger touring acts, and are making headway in the “thrash metal revival” genre.

And dammit, their name alone kicks ass.

Photographer’s Notes: I got to bust out my brand new 100mm f2 lens for some long shots both from the photo pit and crowd perimeter. I was disappointed that the balconies were closed off for this show, but I managed to grab some cool shots over heads. I gotta say I love the bokeh on this lens more than most I’ve seen! It really pops the subject off the background, cluttered with lights and speakers and other distractions.

And the wide f2 aperture is a godsend, considering with the shutter speed/focal length rule of thumb, 100mm on a cropped body needs to be shot at 160th/second or faster. No easy task in concert photography.

]]> http://www.justingillphoto.com/blog/skeletonwitch-house-of-blues/feed 0 http://www.justingillphoto.com/blog/cannibal-corpse-house-of-blues-chicago?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=cannibal-corpse-house-of-blues-chicago http://www.justingillphoto.com/blog/cannibal-corpse-house-of-blues-chicago#comments Sat, 01 May 2010 05:47:50 +0000 Justin Gill http://www.justingillphoto.com/blog/?p=84

DISCLAIMER: Photos contain inordinate amounts of hair.

I really tried to get more photos of faces, but it was really difficult. Cannibal Corpse literally let their hair down at House Of Blues, not to mention whipping it everywhere. In addition to hair, devil horns were flying all over the place during this brutal set.

Photographer’s Notes: I learned a few new things shooting this band. Even though the lighting was nice and bright and didn’t fluctuate too much, I still had difficulty trying to freeze motion of the hair whips, even at 1/200th of a second. I’d have to really crank ISO to speed up my shutter. Personally, I prefer grain over blur, so I shot 3200 or more.

I even had to rapid fire a couple sequences of whips in hopes of catching one shot with stopped motion, and maybe a little face showing. Maybe if I’m bored one day I’ll string them together for an amusing animated gif :)

]]> http://www.justingillphoto.com/blog/cannibal-corpse-house-of-blues-chicago/feed 1 http://www.justingillphoto.com/blog/new-found-glory-house-of-blues-chicago?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=new-found-glory-house-of-blues-chicago http://www.justingillphoto.com/blog/new-found-glory-house-of-blues-chicago#comments Sat, 06 Mar 2010 06:17:00 +0000 Justin Gill http://www.justingillphoto.com/blog/?p=95

Ten years after the release of their self-titled sophomore album, New Found Glory decided to throw an anniversary tour. Stopping at Chicago’s House Of Blues, they surprisingly played like it was released yesterday. They played an energetic set comprised of every song from the album, plus a five-song encore. Hardly any time was wasted once they hit the stage to bust out dangerously infectious pogo riffs. NFG was running around the entire stage with so much intense energy I was surprised when my three-song limit was up. I tried my best to grab shots of the entire band, but I couldn’t help but be drawn to the sheer photogenic energy of frontman Jordan Pundik.

Photographer’s notes: As I’ve mentioned before, HOB is one of my favorite venues. The lighting is pretty robust, and for the most part only requires minor changes in exposure, provided I hold a little patience. The band gave my autofocus quite a challenge by jumping around the entire stage, but a little cool and composure and perseverance yielding plenty of good shots.