So I was in Chicago doing photos of Tegan and Sara in October 2008 (see T&S Modlife blog for story), and while at the show saw Chris Walla for the first time in a few months. Turned out Death Cab for Cutie was playing a secret show the next night at the same venue, the Riviera. Death Cab is my favorite band and I couldn't believe the timing, only problem was my flight home was the next day. When I got back to the hotel after the show, I quickly had to look up if changing my flight and getting another hotel night was even possible, thankfully it was and we prepared for massive bro-ing down to occur.
The next day I arrived at the venue in the afternoon met with their tour manager Mark, they've had him for over 6 years and he's the raddest TM possible. I headed down to the underground dressing room and met up with Nick(bass) and Jason(drums) and caught up about everything. Chris was down at the Obama headquarters working the phones with Jill Biden (Joe Biden's wife) and filmed a PSA/go vote type thing with her as well. He finally returned and informed me So Many Dynamos were opening the show...
(They're a rad band from St Louis that Chris introduced me to musically back in 2007. Jump to fall 2008, he had just finished recording their new record "the Loud Wars" and myself/the band had always wanted to meet/do photos. This meeting ended up solidifying SMD asking me to shoot the photographs for the artwork for "The Loud Wars" but that's another blog.) Chris asked if I would do a couple photos of him and the band just for keepsakes (see the Wolves photo to the left) right before soundcheck. Knocked those out plus a couple group shots of the Dynamos and then headed up stairs for soundcheck. Ben had returned just in time to check his stuff and introduced me to Zooey who was super sweet and super nice. The guys played a couple songs and then we went outside to do a couple group shots before they opened doors.
Show was amazing, first time for me seeing So Many Dynamos. The crowd loved them, and went ballistic over Death Cab. After the show made my rounds saying goodbyes to the crew (DCFC has some of the nicest crew if you ever meet any of them) and then bye to the band. Headed for the hotel and hopped on a plane first thing in the morning.
Back in October 2008 I did a shoot for Macbeth of Tegan and Sara in Chicago. I had never met the girls before but we did know each other through a couple mutual friends. I met up with JT from Macbeth and Bob from MyChem in the morning near the Riviera where the girls were playing that night. We headed to a hotel to pick up T&S and Lindsey Byrnes their tour photographer and then made our way downtown to the HOBChicago. We used the HOB to get the girls ready in hair and make up and then went outside near Maria Towers and the Chicago River to do the shoot. The area is a typical Chicago spot to shoot at but none of us live in Chicago so we were stoked at the scenery.
We did a couple spots around that area for their new Macbeth shoes. After we finished we headed up to Wicker Park to a restaurant called the Handlebar. Although mainly a vegetarian place, I pride myself on eating meat 99% of the time, it was delicious. The french toast was definitely the jam! We left and dropped the girls back off at the venue, and headed over to Bob's for pre-show Halo matches on XboxLIVE. I got throughly destroyed by him while JT sat and made fun of us.
Shot a couple photos during their set, it was my first time seeing them live and I could believe how rad their stage presence was. After the show I go backstage to say goodbye and low and behold Chris Walla is in the green room. I also do photos for Death Cab and hadn't seen Chris since April when the guys asked me to come to Seattle to do rehearsal/promo shots for the new record (another time, another blog). Chris and I are both 6'5" and massive bearhugs ensued. Turned out DCFC were in town to do a secret show the next day at the same venue (another time, and even another blog)...
Two weeks after this shoot, the girls called me and asked if I would go with them to New Orleans for a week to shoot photographs of them for a book. At the time they had never sat down and actually wrote together, nor had I known them longer than the one day so it was a very interesting time. Later this year (2009) there will be a 3 volume boxset of books released by them. The first volume features photos from the tour shot by Lindsey Byrnes, the second my trip with the girls in New Orleans and a third book. Be sure and look out for it, it's amazing! I will most likely post the photos and a personal blog here about it as well.
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