I’ve shot Pennywise a few times on the Warped Tour but I never got the chance to shoot photos of them in a venue. While I like shooting outside in the daytime; the photos can be boring after awhile. But I had feeling I was going to prefer going back to shooting punk bands during the day because this set was hard! Members of the band were moving around the stage a lot, wearing hats, mics in their faces, and it was just hard to get some crisp photos of Pennywise. But I did get an awesome & hilarious photo of Jim Lindberg, which you can see above. But I’ll talk to you about that photo in a bit.

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Strung Out have been around since 1992 but I haven’t really listened to their music all that much. Not for any reason except I just never got any of their albums. Usually when I got Fat Wreck music, I’d hand it off to my friend Paul to review. I saw Strung Out last year at the Warped Tour and thought they were good. On the Pennywise tour, they were awesome and got the crowd in a near riot frenzy.

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Authority Zero were up next and I was really looking forward to their set. I’ve been a fan of AZ for a few years now but only saw them last year for the first time. It was at the Knitting Factory, and now they were playing at The Fillmore at Irving Plaza with Pennywise. They brought their energetic ska punk to a sold out crowd that I’m sure guaranteed them more fans. They played some of my favorites like “One More Minute,” “Find Your Way,” “Revolution” and the amazing rendition of “Rattlin’ Bog.”

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Capital were the opening band at the Pennywise show at The Fillmore last night. When the band performed, the club was already 75 percent filled up and it continued to grow throughout their set. I never heard of Capital before but they are on Revelation Records and are from the Long Island area. Their style is old school hardcore/punk and I thought they were pretty good.

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The Vans Warped Tour is coming up this summer and more & more photographers are getting access to shoot the tour. I have been covering the Warped Tour on and off for 10 years now and tend to get my best shots at this tour. This article is for the newbie photographer that’s just starting out and needs some type of advice on what to do on the concert. I have been asked from time to time on how to get a pass, advice, etc. So here’s a list of things you need to know before shooting the Warped Tour:

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I’ve been a fan of DeVotchKa for over 2 years now. Right before Little Miss Sunshine came out, I found their music on MySpace and thought they were unique and had a cool sound. Then Little Miss Sunshine came out, and I became a huge fan. Last time (also first time) I saw the band, they performed at Spiegeltent at South Street Seaport. I loved their set, even though the show was extremely late in the night. They had Nick’s girlfriend doing the aerial acrobatics and I was really looking forward to seeing that again. A year later, the band played Terminal 5 in the meat packing district. Thankfully the show got over at 11pm!

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Basia Bulat is a Canadian pop singer/musician who has been supporting DeVotchKa on the “Mad and Faithful Telling” tour. Her music was interesting, I thought it sounded great live. I’m curious to hear how her albums are though. Her style is a mixture of pop, folk and indie rock and the crowd really liked her set. I’m not sure what songs she played but I prefer the more upbeat ones. The slow tracks were okay too but I’d rather hear faster songs.

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Fancy Trash hail from Massachusetts and were the opening band for DeVotchKa at Terminal 5 in New York City. I never heard of the band before but they played an Americana acoustic folk rock; think Neil Young meets Loudon Wainwright III. The music wasn’t bad but not sure it’s something I’d listen to a lot. I didn’t really care for the singer’s vocals at times. I did like a few songs though. There were only 2 people in the band so there was only so many photos you could have taken of the group.

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Well, I finally did it! I got the Nikon D300 from B&H Photo!! Since it was announced back in the fall, I knew this was going to be the next camera I would own. Of course I would love to own the Nikon D3, but I can’t see myself paying that much for a camera…Unless it was my main profession. I started to begin saving money for the D300 this spring and sold a lot of stuff on ebay. Then I got the Tax rebate which went towards the camera, ya know, priorties. I’ve been trying to find side work for web design & photography but have been coming up short so far. Then the company I work for decided to reward me with $250 gift card to B&H for my 4 year anniversary. I was shocked and really happy, it was SUPER NICE of them to do that for me. I decided what the hell, and buy the camera now. I’m still going to pursue side work to help pay for the rest of the camera, and hopefully this will be paid off soon.

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I’ve been to quite a few shows this year (more than usual it seems), and most of these shows I’ve been scoring photo passes. So I figured I’d post my top ten favorite photos of 2008 so far. I’ll probably have another blog with my favorite photos towards the end of the year as well. But since I don’t have any shows coming up until the DeVotchKa show on May 20th, I’d figured I’d post this now. As always, comments are very much appreciated!

1. Flogging Molly @ The Chance - Poughkeepsie, NY

Flogging Molly have amazing lighting and each time I shoot them in a club, I always get some kick ass photos. This is one of them! You can also see this photo on Blender.com here.

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