It was great to finally catch The Heard LIVE at The Congress opening for Slightly Stoopid and Tribal Seeds on 3/9. They put on a rockin' live show and were fun to shoot.
The band will be celebrating the one-year anniversary of their weekly residency at Alive One on Thursday, March 28. Come check 'em out!
Thursday March 28th / aliveOne Chicago - aliveOne One Year Anniversary Party! We’ll be celebrating The Heard and aliveOne’s one anniversary with fantastic lights, plenty of special guests, and like always, FREE FUNK!
aliveOne Thursday Residency
Every Thursday at aliveOne, 2683 N. Halsted. 10pm. Never a cover. $3 Three Floyds. (21+)
Here are ChiIL Live Shows' Shots of Sunday at North Coast Music Festival 2012
Sunday highlights were Chi-town's own Mathien, pictured below.
Mathien even got the "shreddy shirt boy" sighting seal of approval!
We really dug seeing Rebirth Brass Band from New Orleans again this year (we also shot them opening for Dumpstaphunk at the after party at Bottom Lounge Sunday night).
We also checked out the vendors including the Chevy street team. I told them I'd just won a week loan of an Inferno Orange Camaro SS and they said, "What are you doing HERE, girl?! You should be out driving that convertible!!!!!"
We did see a number of families and kids Sunday.
More highlights were Van Ghost, Big Boi and Pretty Lights.
The Van Ghost girls, and Jennifer Hartswick (Trey Anastasio Band) in particular, just killed it with their stellar vocals and horns. Sure there were some state of the art DJs & super stars at NCMF, but we chose to go old school and focus our lens predominantly on the musicians playing actual instruments and singing instead of the Mac/ scratch fever crew.
Of course we also shot a lot of the creative, costumed crowd like this cow boy below who's out standing in his field.
We wanna see a band named SLUTHAT next year..... Whose with me?!
It was great to see familiar faces from the music industry/press world/blogosphere like Michael Berge, Michael Raspatello, Amy Ravit Korin (AKA: Interactive Amy) and August Forte!
We hit the fest early Sunday afternoon with the plan to shoot most of Mathien's 2:30 set, then hit IndigoSky.Unfortunately the media/photo pass SNAFU screwed up our shoot schedule again. With no separate press entrance, I had to wait behind hundreds of festival goers to even get in, and then security gave me a hassle again about bringing in my gear. Year 1 we had lanyards/all access. Year two we had a photo pit wrist band which wasn't ideal, but passable. This year, we were approved for two media credentials, but someone had the brilliant idea that GA tickets would suffice. We were unable to shoot Friday at all, since security wouldn't let me in with my pro-camera gear and I had nothing to prove I really had press clearance. I tried for over an hour to get someone on the walkie to get me in with my gear, and finally left in disgust. I'd taken the el down and couldn't very well just ditch thousands of dollars in cameras outside the gate. We were bummed not to catch King Khan & the Shrines, Knife Party and STS9.
Later that night I e-mailed all my contacts on the fest production end and they assured me I had clearance to bring in a camera as press and that the gate fiasco was a mistake. Yet we had the same issue again Sunday with security and were held up at the gate so long we missed shooting all of IndigoSky and just caught Mathian's final song after literally running across to the far side of the fest. Grrrr.
Saturday went smoothly, aside from wasting shoot time in a mass of GA at the main gate and long lines for basics like portalets and water. Every other major music fest we cover has a press area with free water and uncrowded toilets so press can work more efficiently. It's a no brainer really. Lollapalooza's press lounge is great, with a plentiful water and iced tea, private toilets, chairs for interviews, a free happy hour, swag, and more. Unless things change for the better, this may be the last time we take the time to cover North Coast. They seemed bent on making it as hard as possible for me to do my job and get good coverage for our readers!
Sunday I was fortunate enough to run into friends I shoot and review loads of shows for year round, who were able to escort me back stage to get some shots.
Then I ran into one of the NCMF producers I've known for years, who FINALLY kicked me a guest wristband. I still couldn't get any pit photos like we usually run here, but it was a big improvement over nothing.Check out our extensive NCMF 2011 coverage where I shot pit photos from dawn to dusk every day of the fest.
That said, we'll be shooting stills again and catching Mathian's whole set at Reggies Rock Club this Saturday. Come on out and check 'em out. They're excellent. Mathien's on at 7pm sharp, so come early. ALL AGES.
TRIBAL SEEDS From San Diego, California, award-winning reggae group Tribal Seeds have become known for their spiritually driven, refreshing rock vibe they have infused with the roots style of reggae music. BALLYHOO! A rock band with punk energy and pop, reggae grooves, Baltimore’s BALLYHOO! are a fun, fan-loving powerhouse. MATHIEN Till next year NCMF....
