Another year is quickly ending, and with that, my concert photography season has ended as well. I don’t have any scheduled shows happening right now until March but things could pop up. I usually like to take off these months just because I don’t want to worry about driving in the snow. This year was interesting in that I didn’t shoot as many shows as I would have liked, but the ones I did shoot were a lot of fun. You can read my Year in Review list over at ReadJunk.com if you have a few minutes. Like always, it’s tough to select 20 photographs that were your favorite/best photos of the year but I tried my best. Below is my top 20 best concert photos of 2009:
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Carbon Leaf and Stephen Kellogg played during Thanksgiving weekend at Bowery Ballroom in New York City. This show was my 3rd Carbon Leaf show since May. I’ve been a fan of the band since 2003-ish (?) but haven’t seen them live until the first May show at the Highline Ballroom. The band opened for The Sixers, but played an excellent 1 hour set!
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The Cranberries have reunited, and it’s about time too! I bought tickets to their New York City show last month but I was hoping I was going to get a photo pass. I tried and I tried, e-mail a ton of people seeing if they wanted coverage. Nada. I decided to try for myself last minute (i.e. 3pm day of the show) and at 5pm I had a photo pass!
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The Toasters were the last band for the Ska is Dead Tour 4 at the Starland Ballroom in Sayreville, NJ. The only original member left is Bucket, while the other members are from various ska bands. Don’t let that bog you down because the Toasters still sound great!
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Voodoo Glow Skulls were up after Deal’s Gone Bad, and talk about something completely different! VGS has always been a ska band I’ve liked. In fact, they were one of the first ska bands I listened to back in ‘96. That night, they brought a lot of energy and just fast paced ska punk music!
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Deal’s Gone Bad from Chicago play soulful ska & reggae. They will make you shake your ass, and get your groove on! I never saw them before but liked what I heard! I definitely want to check out their albums now. They were also fun to shoot as well.
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Great Big Sea were back in the area and I wasn’t going to miss a chance of seeing one of the greatest live bands play. Tarrytown is closer to where I live than New York City but it took just as long to get there thanks to the horrible traffic on the Thruway and TZ Bridge. I was worried I was going to miss the beginning of the show but luckily everything turned out fine and I got to shoot the show.
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Last month, The excellent UK rock band The Rifles paid a quick visit to Eastern North America. I’ve been listening to the band heavily for at least a year now and was really looking forward to seeing them perform songs off their new album “Great Escape.” I decided to go to their first, early night show at Mercury Lounge in NYC. I shot this show for Prefixmag.com.
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The Saw Doctors came back to NY for their annual St Patrick’s Day shows. Nokia Theatre has been the place the band has played for a few years now. Everytime I come to Nokia, I love it! Saw Doctors fans were treated to a great setlist, and excellent performance by the band.
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It’s that time of year again when The Pogues make their way over to the US for their annual St Patrick’s Day tour. I wasn’t going to skip this and glad I didn’t! The Pogues played for an hour and half and I can’t wait to see them again next year (if they come over here again.)
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