Mike Ness @ The Fillmore at Irving Plaza, NYC – 5.15.08

I only saw Mike Ness once, and that’s when Social Distortion played the Warped Tour back in 1997. I had the choice between seeing The Descendents or Social D but I couldn’t get over to other stage in time so I had to stick around for Social Distortion. I wasn’t really a fan at the time but now I am. I just didn’t listen to Mike Ness and Social Distortion back then but glad I finally listened to his albums. This time around, he was back to play songs from his solo albums and he did a few honky tonk versions of Social D songs like “Story of my Life.” That was just one of the many highlights of the evening, and I loved when he played “Don’t Think Twice,” “Ballad of the Lonely Man,” “Rest of Our Lives,” “Charmed Life,” and “Ring of Fire.”

In my Jesse Dayton blog entry, I said I had trouble at the door with the passes but it got sorted out in the end. I was the only photographer there that night and I loved that! Considering the last time I was at Irving Plaza, the photo pit was so crowded I had to trip & fall to move around. This time, I had the comfort of taking my time with shots & certain angles. I was switching between 3 lenses (18-70mm f3.5, 50mm f1.4 and 70-200mm f2.8). Most of the lenses I have are pretty tight so I had to sit on the edge of the photo pit to get some good shots. I used the 70-200mm lens to get some head shots, but for the most part I switched between the 50mm and 18-70 lens. The 18-70 lenses isn’t fast enough but had no choice since I don’t own the 14-24mm f2.8 or 24-70mm f2.8 lenses (on my wishlist!). But it did the job, and the Nikon d300 helped out a lot thanks to the high ISOs. Well enough of this photo jargon talk, check out some photos from the set:

The Entire Gallery

Buy Prints/ License Photos

Prints in this set are available for purchase! Just email which photo(s) you’re interested in (please provide alt tag or #) and I’ll give you a quote. Photos are also available for licensing to your website, magazine, Facebook page, etc. as well.

Tags: Concert Photography, irving plaza, mike ness, new york city, social distortion, the fillmore at irving plaza