So Nate Ruess put out a new (solo) album called "Grand Romantic" and put on a couple release shows throughout the country. One of them happened to be in LA at a venue I had never gone to before.
I have seen Nate a lot of times since 2004. This show was special because he played songs from his old band, The Format, and the capacity of the venue is only 600. The last time I saw him perform a show that small was right after Some Nights (fun.) came out. My friends and I were super stoked for all of this... we even waited in line, which probably hasn't happened since 2007.
The venue did this weird thing where they let like 100 of us into this small room before actually letting us into the show. We were in there for 45 minutes before anything happened. At least there was a bar!
There was no barracade at this show. Before the set some management dude came out and told everyone with professional cameras to put them away. So I just took my fancy 24-70mm f/2.8 off and put on a 50mm and pretended it wasn't an SLR. I waited a couple songs before I started taking pictures just to be on the safe side.
The show was really good though. I am not the biggest fan of Nate's new album, but he's such an amazing performer. It had been a couple years since I'd seen him play and I think I kind of forgot what to expect. He sounded way better live than on the album (as always) - and I had tons of fun even though I don't know many of his new songs.
Anyway, I GOT A NEW CAMERA. It's Canon 5D Mark III and this was my first show actually getting to take pictures with it. My friend's in The Summer Set played a little over a month ago and I got to take a couple from side stage - but it didn't really count (maybe I'll post some of those later, if you're wondering).
I am still not used to all the controls on this camera, but it's so much better in low light than my old one. Oh, and all these pictures are shot with a 50mm from the same angle so ... hopefully there's a enough variety. Also, these will be in chronological order.
I wish this mic stand wasn't right there because it made it sooooo fucking hard to take pictures. This one would have been so cute...
Someone threw a shirt at Nate... which is really weird because those are like $20 or something.
Thanks for checking this out, let me know what you think and who you think I should try to shoot next!