Jamie Knight is the bassist for the sparkle*jets u.k.. He's also the librarian at FVHS, where he advises a club called the Loud Music Club. He setup a "Battle of the Bands" show to give the bands in the club a chance to play live & to get a chance to win a gig at the International Pop Overthrow.But he didn't stop there, he also got John Borack to get Time Warner to film the whole thing for a public access cable show, and got the sparkle*jets u.k., Receiver, and Third Grade Teacher to play the gig. So it was 9 high school bands (most of whom I missed,as I didn't get there until right before Receiver's set), and a few staples of the local music scene. The kids really responded well to the adult bands. It started raining during Receiver's set, but the kids hung around. It started getting cold & drizzly during the `jets set, but the kids stayed & got even more enthusiastic. Then Third Grade Teacher came out & blew them away. I'm gussing most of these kids probably never see much music other than the ubiquitous teen-girl bands & teen-boy bands & the occasional I'm-an-angry-middle-class-white-guy-who- grew-up-in-Irvine band. Hopefully, the message sunk in that there are a lot of other kinds of music available to them, especially in the LA area. Photographically, this was a pretty nearly ideal situation. It was well lit, I had 360 degree access to the band, and I could get far enough back to capture the ambient onstage light without washing it out with my flash. My favorite shots are the ones from behind the bands, where you get the kind of silhouetted effect & can see some of the audience in the background. My only (self-imposed) restriction was that I had to be kinda careful to stay out of the way of the Time- Warner cameras. My only regret is that I didn't shoot even more pictures. I didn't realize how good they were gonna look until I started working with them. Had I known I would have shot till my finger fell off & then moved on to the next finger. :-) A splendid time was had by all (especially me :-). |