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2015: A Year in Pictures

By Jennifer December 31, 2015 December 20, 2015 Rock 'n' Roll Photog, Year in Pictures

Hello, darlings. I hope you are having excellent holidays, or at least excellent days.

Normally this feature is just a year’s worth of shows – or a year and a bit – but I’m doing something a little different this time around. 2015 has been amazing, at times, and brutal, at others, and as I uploaded my images, it occurred to me that some of the silences had as much of an impact as the instances of joyful noise.

So, here it is: a year of pictures of rockstars, and some other things, too.

Book of Love, Terminal 5, New York, NY, Dec. 31, 2014

Andy Bell, Erasure, Terminal 5, New York, NY, Dec. 31, 2014

Kennedy (tuxedo) and Nikita (fluffball), dozing, New York, NY, Jan. 17, 2015

Nikita, 2001-Feb. 16, 2015

Kennedy, Feb. 28, 2015

Alina in the snow, March 1, 2015

Snow, birds, intrepid traveler, Brighton Beach, March 20, 2015

Fort Tryon Park/George Washington Bridge, Easter Sunday, April 5, 2015

Nick Morrison, Mumblr, Emerson House, Brooklyn, NY, April 24, 2015

Mumblr,
Emerson House, Brooklyn, NY, April 24, 2015

Bonfire at the Mumblr show, Emerson House, Brooklyn, NY April 24, 2015

Flowering tree, Brooklyn, April 24, 2015

Kennedy, 1998-May 21, 2015

The beach at Corpus Christi, TX, June 27, 2015

Karma Killers, Warped Tour, Jones Beach, July 11, 2015

The Dirty Nil, Warped Tour, Jones Beach, July 11, 2015

Metro Station, Warped Tour, Jones Beach, July 11, 2015

Family Force 5, Warped Tour, Jones Beach, July 11, 2015

Black Veil Brides, Warped Tour, Jones Beach, July 11, 2015

Rivers Monroe, Warped Tour, Jones Beach, July 11, 2015

The beach at Jones Beach, July 11, 2015

Z Berg, the Studio at Webster Hall, New York, NY, July 21, 2015

Alex Greenwald, PHASES, the Studio at Webster Hall, New York, NY, July 21, 2015

Z Berg and Michael Runion, PHASES, the Studio at Webster Hall, New York, NY, July 21, 2015

Father John Misty, Central Park, New York, NY, August 5, 2015

Austin Plaine, Rockwood Music Hall, August 12, 2015

Plastic Cannons, Rockwood Music Hall, August 12, 2015

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Cleveland, OH, Aug. 20, 2015

House band at the Dixie Stampede, Pigeon Forge, TN, Sept. 23, 2015

Patriotic finale, Dixie Stampede, Pigeon Forge, TN, Sept. 23, 2015

Elvis Presley at the pancake house, Pigeon Forge, TN, Sept. 24, 2015

Elvis Presley (impersonator) at the State Fair, Jackson, MS, Oct. 10, 2015

The Famous Maroon Band comes marching in, Starkville, MS, Nov. 14, 2015

Tombigbee River, Columbus, MS, Dec. 13, 2015

Miss Gay Oklahoma 2014, Rick’s Cafe, Starkville, MS, Dec. 15, 2015

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Postcards from the Pit: Fall Out Boy / NK, House of Blues Boston, 5/26/13

By Jennifer May 29, 2013 February 6, 2014 Postcards from the Pit, Rock 'n' Roll Photog, show reviews

In which I went to Boston for Fall Out Boy, and it was an awesome, sweaty, raucous festival of joy.

But to back up a little bit: Up first was NK, which is Ryan Hunter and Brian Byrne (Envy on The Coast) and Billy Rymer (Dillinger Escape Plan), and they’re currently touring with Isaac Bolivar and Matt Fazzi (Taking Back Sunday).

They have a heavy rap-rock Rage Against The Machine vibe going. I didn’t know any of their songs but I could nonetheless appreciate the barely controlled surge and snarl of their drums and guitars. I’m pretty sure it isn’t possible to listen to their set and not suddenly find yourself banging your head.

Some highlights:

This really is Ryan Hunter (Envy on the Coast). He cut all of his dreads off!

Joe Trohman and Isaac Bolivar, headbanging.

The right side of the stage . . .

. . . and the left.

And then it was time for the main event. Fall Out Boy came out in a burst of light and noise and kicked it off with Thriller – their Thriller, not Michael Jackson’s – which was an absolute perfect choice and caused my heart to clench with pain and affection even as I was grinning at them like an idiot.

I have a medium-sized number of thinky thoughts about the show / spectacle, specifically: that both Thriller and This Ain’t A Scene, It’s An Arms Race have gained new, sharper edges over time; that The Phoenix is both the thrilling rally cry of a band coming back wrapped around a reminder to hold on, hold on, even when your band has gone away; that if you don’t start jumping during The Phoenix, I think you might be dead inside; that Fall Out Boy has emerged from their hiatus as an energized and cohesive unit, ready to rally the troops and take on the world (and maybe take over the world, too); that calling their record Save Rock and Roll might be brash and a little obnoxious but, well, Fall Out Boy would not be Fall Out Boy if they were not brash and a little obnoxious; and that brash, a little obnoxious, overblown and sometimes overwrought is why we love them. It’s why we jump up and down and and wave our hands in the air. It’s what makes the room sing.

And now, some pictures. I was three rows back from the stage and, as you will see, deep in a forest of hands, but these are some of the good shots:

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Postcards from the Pit: The Felice Brothers / Yellowbirds / Mail the Horse, Mercury Lounge, 12/31/12

By Jennifer January 9, 2013 February 6, 2014 Postcards from the Pit, Rock 'n' Roll Photog, show reviews

And now, at long last, the promised pictures from the Felice Brothers’ New Years Eve show.

Starting from the beginning, with Mail the Horse:

Yellowbirds were up next; they’re also from Brooklyn, and were an odd little burst of power-pop in the middle of a twangy, fuzzed-out evening:

And then, The Felice Brothers, who played a bunch of crowd favorites (ones I can remember: Frankie’s Gun, Cumberland Gap, Whiskey in my Whiskey, White Limousine, Run, Chicken, Run), surprised us with an appearance by Simone Felice, poured us into the New Year with Take This Bread, ceded their stage to a member of the audience for a (successful!) marriage proposal, and at the end shut the place down with back-to-back covers of Carry That Weight by The Beatles and Smells Like Teen Spirit by Nirvana.

Carry That Weight I sang along with out of . . . habit, for lack of a better term. It’s the Beatles, I’m not that keen on them but it’s a communal thing to do, rolling with the crowd-swell for the chorus, acknowledging that 2012 was rough and 2013 may not be much better but no matter what is going on outside, we’re warm, indoors, some of us are not feeling any pain, and we have been able to come together with our band and sing with them.

Smells Like Teen Spirit was electrifying and cathartic. And communal, too, but in a different way. Most of the people there, or at least standing around me, were old enough to actually remember Nirvana when Nirvana was new. And we pretty much all got up on our toes and howled Here we are now / Entertain us / I feel stupid / and contagious and it felt like an exhortation to take the new year by the throat.

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Postcards from the Pit: Father John Misty / La Sera / Jeffertitti’s Nile, Bowery Ballroom, 10/24/12

By Jennifer November 9, 2012 February 6, 2014 Postcards from the Pit, Rock 'n' Roll Photog, show reviews

My post-show summary of Jeffertitti’s Nile was that they were loud and swirly, but pretty, and on reflection I think that sums them up pretty well. Their songs were almost entirely instrumental, and, were, well, psychadelic kaledeiscopes of notes. And yes, that is Father John Misty you see perched behind their drums; he was sitting in with them for the tour.

The second opener was La Sera. They started out kind of sweet and twee and then somewhere around song two or three abruptly kicked into gear, sprouted some harder edges and jumped several notches on my approval matrix. They also got bonus points for a partial cover / interpolation of an Elvis Presley song, because there really should be more punk/rockabilly Elvis covers.

And then Father John Misty (J. Tillman) re-appeared, having apparently briefly decamped to Tom Petty Fest and found it wanting. Here’s what I’m going to tell you about his set: what you hear on the record is what you hear live.

He did some jazz-hands and a lot of shimmy-shake and hit all of those notes in achingly beautiful style, with occasional breaks for snarking on the Tom Petty Fest and other miscellaneous rambling. It was obnoxious and beautiful and hilarious and I can’t wait to do it again at Webster Hall when he comes back in January.

Other notes: Jeffertitti Moon returned the sitting-in favor and played guitar during Tillman’s set.

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Photos from the Austin City Limits Festival

By April October 23, 2012 October 23, 2012 feature

Originally shot for Speakers in Code, our friend Nate Burrell has allowed us to share some of his photos from this year’s Austin City Limits Festival. The shots are so gorgeous, I’m not even going to begrudge him the fact that he didn’t shoot the Afghan Whigs. who played yet another stellar set at the fest.

(Click photos to view larger versions.)