What can I say, it’s Radiohead.  If your a regular reader of my site you already know I’m a big fan of them and their stand against the norm of the music industry.  Not just musically, but how they distributed their last album In Rainbows.  Anyway, I was excited to shoot them for the second time.  There is always an excitement about shooting someone as big as Radiohead and 3 songs seems to fly by in no time compared to others.  I think it went well, pushing and shoving my way around the photo pit to get the shots I wanted.  The stage was great, the weather finally cooled a little and pulling out the 300mm f/2.8 never hurts to get the closeups.  Nothing like an almost 7 lb off-white lens in the middle of a mosh pit.  I included a few photos today as a feature….enjoy.

Crowd getting ready for Radiohead

Thom Yorke

Jonny Greenwood

Radiohead

Thom Yorke

Ed O'Brien

Colin Greenwood, nice CTA shirt ;)

Jonny Greenwood

Thom Yorke

Radiohead shot from about 100 yards away on some steps with my 300mm

Well, what can I say.  It’s the The Raconteurs.  This was the second time I shot them within a few months.  Since photogrpahers only get the first 3 songs of each set, it was the exact same songs that I shot them playing at Bonnaroo.  I think they came out better then ‘Roo, the stage was a bit shorter and there was more room in the pit to back up and get better shots.  Jack White is still as white as possible, not fun to shoot in direct sunlight.  Anyway, here’s a few shots.

Brendan Benson & Jack White

Jack White – vocals, guitar, keyboards

Brendan Benson – vocals, guitar, keyboards, backing vocals

Brendan Benson & Jack White

I pretty much shot Grizzly Bear because they are opening for Radiohead this year and Sigur Rós who opened for them on the last tour was so good.  I’d have to say Grizzly Bear is kinda like a mellower Beach Boys not from the beach.  Not really impressed.  My photos of them, not really impressive either.  Oh well.

Grizzly Bear - Daniel Rossen (songwriting/guitar)

Grizzly Bear - Chris Taylor (bass/woodwinds/electronics/vocals)

Yet another duo I shot on Friday was Mates of State, hailing from San Francisco.  I have to say I was impressed.  You can check them out a bit more form Spinner at the Interface or their MySpace page.

Mates of State - Kori Gardner

Mates of State - Jason Hammel

Mates Of State

Don’t know a whole lot about Free Sol, but I shot them and here they are ;)  They have a great drummer and the vocalist was pretty good as well.

Free Sol

Free Sol

I had some extra time between shows so I caught up with someone I never heard.  Which I have to say is the joy of going to large festivals like Bonnaroo and Lollapalooza.  Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears where playing the smaller “BMI Stage” and I figured I’d go check them out.  Another Austin, Texas band with a soul blues backing.

Since I already ran one photos of Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys, I figured I would run a few different today. Dan and drummer  Patrick Carney rocked out as normal, playing quite a bit from their newest album, Attack & Release. The Akron duo is always a crowd pleaser though.

The British post-punk duo The Kills was next on my list.  Even though American born Alison “VV” Mosshart later passed out from heat exhaustion, the songs I saw her and Brit guitarist Jamie “Hotel” Hince play where damn good.  I recommend picking up an album or two of theirs.

I decided to actually show off some of my images from Lollapalooza this year.  Each day I’ll feature another band, in the order I shot them.  So, Friday I started it all with The Go! Team, fun band and they made for some nice photos.

A few quick photos from yesterday.  More later!

Well, Gretchen and I leave today for Chicago as I’m shooting Lollapalooza for the first time.  Hopefully I’m be able to shoot it for several years going forward, but who knows.  Anyway, I’m packing basically the same set up I run with for Bonnaroo, minus the camping gear.  Gotta say, I’m excited to shoot a different type of festival in the middle of a large booming city instead of the middle of nowhere Tennessee. Hopefully it goes better as well.  I feel my shots for Bonnaroo where a little lacking this year, maybe it was a combination of some rain, a bad lineup and general negativity surrounding the Kayne West show. He’s actually going to be @ Lolla as well, but I’m shooting Nine Inch Nails instead.  Hopefully with better sleeping conditions and what so far has been a better run publicity campaign I’ll have better shots.

Well things are lining up for me to be able to shoot Lollapalooza this year.  I’ve been talking to the AOL editorial and photo departments about shooting it for them and they are excited to have me their.  I’ve also been talking to my favorite photo agency , PhotoShelter about representing me this year.  I’ll probably be going through them for both Bonnaroo and Lollapalooza from now on.  While they are small and I may not make as much from them in the short term I should be able to make more long term if everything works out, since I get paid 70% from each sale instead of the normal 50% from other agencies.  Besides, Retna took forever to pay for some shots and still owes me for other sales from Roo’ last year..  Not real happy with them at the moment.  Anyway, I’m excited and the line-up is well worth the trip to Chicago.