Amorphis at Getaway Rock Festival 2011

I was curious to see Amorphis at GRF. I had heard a few songs of theirs that sounded pretty good.

Amorphis came on right after a downpour that soaked most of the crowd. I lucked out in that I was eating some Thai food in one of only a few places that provided shelter during the deluge. The rain stopped after just a few minutes, and I headed over to the Bandit Rock Stage.

Amorphis from Finland

Amorphis reminded me, a bit, of Nightwish–OK to listen to on occasion but ultimately a bit boring. I have nothing against metal bands going melodic and/or progressive, but they should vary things more often, with at least some faster riffs, to keep it interesting.

Dream Theater is another band that comes to mind. There are only a couple of DT songs, after their first CD, that I can stand to listen to at this point. I’m hoping that Opeth isn’t going this same route. I’m worried that their new CD, Heritage, will not have enough heavy elements and be too mellow to keep me awake (or wanting to listen to it often).

I’m certainly not knocking all bands that evolve into something more progressive and melodic than their early days. Bands that have successfully mellowed over time, IMO, include: Enslaved, Katatonia, Anathema, Mastodon, Dark Tranquility, and Amon Amarth.

Posted on August 21st, 2011 under Other. Tags: amorphis, concert photography, getaway rock festival, metal, nikon d7000. Comments Off on Amorphis @ Getaway Rock Festival 2011

Grutle Kjellson and Arve Isdal of Enslaved

Another photo today of Enslaved…

If all goes well, I’ll be leaving Norway soon, and I will have a fresh, new band from the Getaway Rock Festival for you tomorrow once I’m reunited with my computer in Copenhagen. Who would you like to see next? Alice Cooper? Kreator? Accept? Danzig? Opeth? F.K.Ü.? Ghost? I have more bands as well, almost too many to contemplate processing. I still haven’t looked at most of the photos I took in Sweden.

Posted on July 17th, 2011 under Other. Tags: concert photography, enslaved, getaway rock festival, metal, nikon d7000. Comments Off on Enslaved

This will wrap up the Ghost at Roskilde series. Tomorrow I will have some photos from Sweden for you.

BTW, all the Ghost photos in this entry were taken with a Nikon D7000 using a Nikon Nikkor 50mm f/1.8D AF Lens.

For more recent photos of the band Ghost (now called Ghost B.C.) click here.

Posted on July 10th, 2011 under Denmark. Tags: concert photography, ghost band sweden, metal, roskilde festival. Comments: 4

I still haven’t had time to process many images from the Amon Amarth show, but here are a couple more and a couple more videos too. I hope to have a large set of photos and videos from the Wonder Ballroom concert posted later today.

Johan Hegg is the vocalist in the top photo. And here he is applauding the crowd at the end of the evening…

The next video is “With Oden On Our Side” from the 2006 CD of the same name. The last time I saw Amon Amarth was when they were touring for that CD.

A new song, “A Beast Am I” off of “Surtur Rising,” is next. If you have a large screen you can view these in HD at 720p or 1080p. I took the photos and video with my TZ10 (ZS7). Now that the show is over I wish I had used my new Nikon, but that wouldn’t have been fun to have had around my neck all evening.

Posted on April 21st, 2011 under Oregon. Tags: amon amarth, concert photography, metal, video. Comments Off on Amon Amarth photos and videos

To try out my new scanner I pulled this old picture out of a photo album I had lying around.

The year was 1987. I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area so the farthest I ever had to travel to a concert was about 30 miles. But in 1987 I was living in Utah and decent shows were few and far between. A buddy of mine and I hatched a plan to drive 800+ miles (each way) to see a band virtually no one had heard of but we loved, Death Angel. Their first CD (yes CDs were out in 1987), The Ultra-Violence, had recently been released and we couldn’t get enough of it.

I’m not positive of the date, but I know we listened to the Twins win the World Series on the car radio on our way back to Utah so the concert was probably on October 23 or 24 (notice the jack-o-lantern on the riser next to the drum kit). The venue was the old Mountain View Theater, which, until earlier in the same year, had been a movie theater for its first 61 years.

I did not know what the members of Death Angel looked like. I only knew that I loved their sound and that they were all younger than I. I was 19. The drummer, Andy Galeon, for instance, was only 15 at the time. So it was with great embarrassment that I struck up a conversation with Mark Osegueda, the lead singer, in the bathroom before the show while not knowing it was him. He had on a The Legacy (pre-Testament) t-shirt as you can sort of see in this photo. We were peeing next to each other, and I commented on his t-shirt. He said something like, “You like them too?” I told him I went to high school with the former drummer, Mike Ronchette, which when I saw him walk out on stage 15 minutes later and realized who I had been speaking with caused me to think I had said something really stupid.

Anyway, to make a long story shorter, the show was fantastic, and I’ve been waiting decades since for the chance to see them again. That may happen this summer when I will be in Copenhagen, and they will be playing in Sweden. It may be time for another road trip.

Posted on January 22nd, 2011 under Other. Tags: concert photography, death angel, metal. Comments: 3