Third to perform at After the Scream were Johnny Hi-Fi; hailing from the United States. Normally a three-piece, only two band members were present that night at Revolver. For reasons I’m still trying to figure out, their set was basically the slowest part of the evening, even though they brought some really great music to the table.
If I had to guess, there were two major factors working against the band that night. The first was their placement on the set list: third in line and between two very high energy acts. Yeah that’s a tough spot to be in. I can kind of see the logic in that, though; it’s a bar, they’re business is selling booze and when the music is crazy, chances are you’re not going to be looking for a drink. So yeah, a slower performance to give people time to chill and drink.
That brings us to the part that kinda breaks my heart. The music really was great, if poorly mixed for the After the Scream line-up. No, it wasn’t in-your-face rock and roll like Monkey Pilot before them and The Hsu-nami afterwards. However, what the significantly thinned out audience did witness was some well performed music from the heart. What I mean is that the music was genuine, with a strong sense of emotion weaved throughout. And maybe that was problem, it just wasn’t — in my opinion – a good fit for the kind of crazy, party atmosphere at Revolver that night.
I’ll give the band credit where it’s due. When the crowd wasn’t as responsive as they might have liked, they kept their cool and just tried harder. By the end of their set, I’d say the audience had warmed up to them a lot more. The free CDs they were tossing out didn’t hurt, either, but it’s my hope maybe some of the crowd just listened a little harder and made their minds up with that. Maybe they weren’t a huge hit with everyone that night, but I thought their music was some of the more meaningful of the evening.
Notes
The Johnny Hi-Fi set didn’t get much love from the other photographers, so I had a nice wide open field to work in. Of course, with only two of the three members of the band present, there wasn’t a crazy amount of things to shoot. In the end I shot both of them from several different angles, both to capture my own self-imposed requirements and to experiment a little bit. After I exhausted my options, I kinda just sat back and enjoyed the show — something we all outta do more often.
For those interested in settings, it was all pretty standard stuff: ISO1600-3200, 1/160-250 @ f/2.8 (or wider). When flash was used, it was on an SC-29 i-TTL cable, zoomed in all the way and set to FEV -1.7.
Gear
Nikon D7000 (Amazon)
Nikon AF 24mm f/2.8D (Amazon)
Nikon AF 50mm f/1.4D (Amazon)
Nikon AF 80-200mm f/2.8D (Amazon)
Nikon SB-700 (Amazon)
Nikon SC-29 (Amazon)
