Continuing Floater week, here are some more photos from the May 20, 2011 show at the Rogue Theatre in Grants Pass, Oregon.
David Amador is the Floater guitarist.
Another picture of Rob Wynia…
Today’s video is of the song “Cinema” from the Glyph CD, Floater’s 2nd CD released back in 1995. The audio is really bad at times although things sounded great in my ears. I had ear plugs in which usually fix some indoor concert noise. My camera didn’t have the earplug luxury. Still, I wonder if the recorded sound would have come out cleaner had I been near the mixing board.
Last night Eric (pictured above) and I headed up to Grants Pass to see Floater for something like the sixth time. I brought along my Nikon D7000 to practice shooting concerts with before the festivals this summer for which I will likely have a press pass (Roskilde in Denmark and Getaway in Sweden). I didn’t really expect them to let me in with it, but they said nothing.
I’ll post a couple dozen photos and some videos from the show over the next week.
Robert Wynia on bass and vocals
Pete Cornett on drums and backing vocals
The Rogue Theatre’s poor lighting didn’t make photography easy. I tried a half dozen different settings and never really found anything that worked great in low light. Most of the shots that came out OK were on the rare occasions when the lighting got almost half-way decent for a moment.
The D7000 video capabilities aren’t too amazing in low light, or I didn’t have the settings right. Anyone know good settings for recording video at a concert on the D7000? I should have filmed the videos by the sound board for higher quality audio. Lesson learned.
Last night Robert Wynia of Floater put on an absolutely magical performance (for me anyway) at Johnny B’s in Medford. He performed at the same place back in March.
This time I was familiar with his new CD, Iron By Water. I don’t know if the familiarity with the new material was it, or if there was just some pixie dust in the air, but I was spellbound.
I decided to try out my son’s Panasonic HDC-SDX1 (1080p HD Camcorder). While it was easy to use, lightweight, and I had a perfect view of the entire performance (recording over a dozen songs and only skipping three from the entire set), the results aren’t what I was expecting. Things looked great in the viewfinder and the sound was good at the venue, but the videos aren’t very clear and the sound is not always good. I’m disappointed as I thought the camcorder would do much better than my TZ10, which is what I used last time in similar conditions. It turns out the TZ10 can take better video, at least in a poor lighting environment.
Floater returns to the Rogue Valley next Friday night. They are playing in Grants Pass. Perhaps I’ll try my Nikon D7000 then and see if I don’t have better luck.
Since the quality isn’t where it should be, I’ll post just one of the videos. You can find the rest on youtube. This is “Cast Aside” off the new solo CD. It reminds me somewhat of Pink Floyd.
I took a little trip up north on Tuesday to see a Swedish band I had previously seen in Sweden in 2008. If you are interested (I know most of you probably are not) then check out the photos and video I will post here.
The venue was the Wonder Ballroom, located right in the middle of a residential neighborhood–very strange. The building was cool, though, and is on the National Register of Historic Places.
And the rest of the videos I took from Floater’s bassist’s great show…
This last song really surprised me. I didn’t realize Rob was doing covers of “The Final Cut” or I wouldn’t have missed the first part of it. I’m a huge Roger Waters fan and “The Final Cut” is more Roger Waters than Pink Floyd.
Last night a friend and I headed to Medford to watch Rob Wynia on his solo, acoustic tour in support of his new CD, Iron by Water. The Floater front man did not disappoint. Actually, 2/3 of Floater played on this evening. Peter Cornett was on drums.
Here is a video I took of one of the Floater songs they performed, “Cannonball” off of Wake. Enjoy!
Last, but not least, the headliner of the show was “Shrouded In Veils.” They may have played the shortest set of the night. Is there a curfew of some sort in Seattle? I don’t know, but they ended right at midnight. No vocals from this band, just nice, grooving licks. “Heavy soundscapes” is probably a better description.
The bassist had his bass strap break early in on the first song. He tried some pink duct tape (still visible in the above photo), but it wouldn’t hold so he spent much of their set with his back to the audience and his foot up on the drum stand in order to support his bass guitar on his leg.
You can listen to Parhelion, off their new EP, here. It’s a beautiful song if you like heavy, complex, jam-type music.
Next up, after Smooth Sailing, was a band called “He Whose Ox Is Gored.” Great name, great band. If I had to compare them to another band, they sounded somewhat similar to Isis or maybe Pelican. However, they didn’t really sound like Isis or Pelican either. They are unique. I hope they come play in Ashland someday.
The venue, El Corazon, is a fun little spot. The stage is huge for a club, with a pole in the front and slightly off center. The space for the crowd is probably only two times the size of the stage. The guy in the crowd in the above picture whose ear you can see is actually the guitarist in Smooth Sailing. If I lived in Seattle I would be here at least 20 times a year. According to the posters on the wall, loads of great bands came through during the past year including Katatonia, Kreator, Nevermore, Death Angel, Finntroll, Overkill, Vader (twice), and many more.
I got back, at 1 a.m. this morning, from a couple of days in Seattle. It rained most of the time, in typical Seattle fashion, but at least it wasn’t freezing like the last time I went there this time of year.
Although there wasn’t much to do in the outdoors, due to the weather, the nightlife is always good in Seattle. I went to a place called El Corazon to see four bands I had never heard of before. I ended up really liking three of them. The first was the one pictured above, Smooth Sailing. Sans the vocals (metalcore-like vocals are not my thing), they were perfect in every way. With vocals, I will pass on purchasing anything they put out, but I would certainly like to see them live again.
Time to wrap up this series on Roger Waters performing The Wall Live last week. I can’t get the show out of my head even though a week has almost past, but I will put those of you who couldn’t care less out of your misery with today’s final post on the topic. Tomorrow we will be back to our regularly scheduled program.
I will end this with a video I took of “In The Flesh.” Notice the flying pig. Also take note of Roger pointing at me when he says “There’s one smoking a joint… and that one’s got spots!”. Speaking of pot, I haven’t seen so much weed at a concert since the 1980s. With the decriminalization of marijuana in California, (many people have cards and even those without are only charged with a misdemeanor for a first offense) there was no search upon entry and security didn’t seem to care that people were openly getting high all over the place.
Another interesting turn of events is that not only were cameras tolerated (as they usually are these days), but an announcement was made just prior to the show to turn off your flash while taking pictures.
And finally, speaking of the pre-show, the warm up songs were some old Neil Young tunes and John Lennon’s “Imagine”. Lennon was killed just a few hours shy of 30 years to when this performance of The Wall took place.
