Doomsday! The Ultimate Tribute to Mephiskapheles @ Characters, NYC – 9.15.12

Doomsday! The Ultimate Tribute to Mephiskapheles consisting of members of Mephiskapheles played last night to a crowded Characters on W. 54st street in NYC. Brendog Tween, Mikal Reich and others (formerly of Mephiskapheles) kind of have a new band where they play stripped down, acoustic ska songs. They played Meph songs, reggae covers and also have some originals as well.

I wanted to get to last Characters ska show hosted by Stephen Shafer and Marc Wasserman of Bigger Thomas but plans fell through. But I wanted to check out at least Doomsday! and Bigger Thomas last night. Beat Brigade played as well but I headed home after Bigger Thomas set. Stephen Shafer DJed last night again, playing ska & reggae in-between sets and it was a good time! The turnout was great and filled the back room at Characters.

Not sure if the set was planned or not, but Doomsday didn’t play that long. They might have started later than they were suppose to. I enjoyed their set even though if the mixing was a little off. It was hard to hear the singing at times. The band started off with a cover of “Eve of Destruction.” They played some Toots and the Maytals covers (“Monkey Man,” “Sweet and Dandy”), some Mephiskapheles songs like “Eskamoes,” “Dansemenot” and of course the fan favorite “Saba.” During “Sweet and Dandy,” Mike from the Bluebeats came up to sing with Brendog. “Saba” was played last and everyone in the place was dancing and singing along. They should call this type of ska campfire ska because that’s what it reminds me of. It was interesting, different and loved it! I just wish they played more.

You can hear some of the tunes on their ReverbNation page here if you couldn’t make it the show last night.

It was tough taking pictures in this place because it was so dark inside. I didn’t want to use my flash but ended up doing so later. I was shooting around ISO 3200 and shutter speeds of 1/20-1/30. So yeah. Lots of grainy, blurry photos haha. I usually have a rule when my photos get this grainy, I just make them black & white. It actually helps out a little bit by converting them to b/w. I shot this with the two lenses I usually shoot with, 24-70mm f2.8 and 70-200mm f2.8. Bringing the 70-200mm f2.8 for these types of places is a bit silly but then I don’t have to move around the club. I call it my lazy lens.

The Entire Gallery

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Tags: acoustic, Brendog Tween, Characters, Concert Photography, Doomsday! The Ultimate Tribute to Mephiskapheles, Mephiskapheles, Mikal Reich, nyc, satan ska, ska, The Bluebeats