I lost count on how many times I’ve seen the Pilfers. Every time they reunite and play some shows in the NY area, I have to go to them. They were always the go to band for exciting live shows and I never left one of their shows disappointed. The same can be said about the Ska is Dead Tour 4 show last week. Pilfers were of course a highlight for me, both performance-wise and photography-wise.

To read the full review, visit ReadJunk.com here.

I believe I got my best photos of the night during the Pilfers set. Why? Because Vinny and Coolie are always interacting with the crowd, jumping, pointing and just very animated throughout their set. It makes it fun to shoot them, especially when Vinny comes right up to your camera and sings into your lenses. Good thing I had my wide angle lens on and everything came in focus this time. I was a bit discouraged when Jim of Pennywise gave me the finger last year and it came out too grainy and slightly blurry. I managed to snap off a few shots of Vinny in front of me, kneeling down and singing into my camera. I was cracking up when I was taking pictures of Anna because she always smiles and poses for the camera. She’s always been that way when I took pictures of her, even way back in 1998 at the Haunt in Ithaca, NY.

There was a few close calls with Coolie balancing himself on the photo pit barricade. He almost fell backwards, thankfully a security guard was there to hold him back up. Coolie went into the crowd a few times to sign like he always does, but I didn’t feel like getting my flash and standing on the barricade to get a shots. So while that was happening, I concentrated on other members of the band. I missed a few jump shots from Nick but got some other cool shots of him. If you ever get the chance to shoot the Pilfers, do it because they put on one of the best live shows!

Here are my favorites from their set:

View the rest of the photos in the set here.

Tags: 18-70mm f3.5-f4.5, Anna Milat-Meyer, Concert Photography, coolie ranx, elevation!, James Blanck, Nick Bacon, nikon d300, nj, Photography, pilfers, sayreville, starland ballroom, vinny nobile

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 22nd, 2009 at 2:46 pm and is filed under Concert Photography . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.