Reviewing old photos is an extremely painful process for me. While I love seeing old images with refreshed eyes, it sucks seeing how often I missed focus or murdered the exposure on otherwise great photos. In 2008, I upgraded my gear from a Canon 30D with a Tamron 17–50 f/2.8 lens to a Canon 40D and 24–70L lens. While the kit allowed me to capture focus faster, that didn’t mean I was nailing it.
Case in point, my shoot with The Faint at Terminal 5 on August 18, 2008. I blew through a four gigabyte card during my allotted three songs and only landed a handful of shots. I could blame the frantic lighting and the band’s chaotic stage presence, but the fact is, at that time I wasn’t capable yet of reading a room and manually adjusting my settings to keep up with the pace. I’m also probably being a little too critical. While the focus isn’t tack sharp on all of these photos, I think they capture the essence of the band.
As for The Faint. I went through a huge Saddle Creek-emo phase in the mid-’90s and spent far too much time at Bright Eyes, Rilo Kiley and Cursive shows (as well as a ton of offshoot bands). While I have long since grown out of that stage, The Faint is still a band I love and respect. Danse Macabre is on regular rotation in my office and “Southern Belles in London Sing” (off Wet from Birth) is one of my favorite songs ever. To anyone that complains about the homogenization of music, do yourself a favor and check out The Faint live. You won’t be disappointed.
