I shot a show for a local publication, Listen SD, last night at the Balboa Theatre downtown. It was a super weird show. I had no idea what to expect before I went because I hadn't heard of any of the bands before.
You can read about my expirience under all the pictures if you're interested.
Parade of Lights
Ryland
R5
So, I was told that doors were at 7pm and the band I was shooting, Parade of Lights, would be going on much later than that. Haha, no they went on right at 7pm (doors were way earlier... apparently). I was under the impression that they were the second band... but we'll get into that later.
Outside the venue crowd was mostly children under 12 and their parents. At that moment I knew I got myself into something weird. I picked up my photo pass and headed inside. The girl at the box office told me no information, so I asked some of the staff at the venue where I was allowed to shoot since there was no photo pit and the entire theatre is seated. They directed me to this corner to the right of the stage. Little did they know, I was actually supposed to wait in the lobby to be escorted inside.
I was the only photographer there. It was so awkward.
About two songs into the first band, Parade of Lights, the escort showed up and I was so confused.
My pictures for the opening band turned out like shit. I was kind of upset about it. They used blue lights the entire set - a photographers nightmare. They didn't move much on stage so I was basically getting the same shot over and over. I wasn't concerned about the bad pictures because I was under the impression that they were a band called Ryland - because Parade of Lights was supposed to go on second, right? Nope.
After the three songs were up, we went into the lobby and I asked him if there was anyway I could move around to shoot. And of course, the rest of the staff at the theatre was wrong - I was allowed to move around as long as I didn't bother any of the fans.
So then the second band starts playing. I run into the theater and realize it's a DJ - DJ Ryland to be exact. This is when I found out that Ryland was not the opener... Parade of Lights was. Fuck, my shitty pictures were of the band I was here to shoot. This a DJ played only top 40 songs. Really loud. I took like 5 pictures of him. Went back to the lobby and waited completely for the headliner to go on.
At 8:15pm, I met up with my escort again. His name was Matt and he was a real nice dude. He brought me back inside and told me I could go where ever I want as long as I'm back with him after three songs.
R5 was the headliner. I don't know much about them besides that they play pop songs and are siblings from LA. They had lots of real young fans that were so cute and so excited to be at the show. I've never been at a show with that many little kids. I am pretty happy with the shots I got from this band. They had nice lights and they moved around on stage. It's too bad I wasn't on assignment for R5 since their pictures look way better than Parade of Lights.
And that's pretty much how my night last night went.