This weekend featured two new types of photography for me: on Friday night, my first proper wedding (where I didn’t know the couple at all) and then my first indie rock concert on Saturday and Sunday. All in all, I was taking photos, thinking of taking photos, and running to get to a new place to take photos for 72hrs.
While it was exciting to take photos at the wedding, it’s hard to compare it to a two day long concert where over 30 of the hottest bands are playing. I was lucky enough to be the photographer for Gapers Block (a Chicago centric webzine) which gave me the all important “Press Pass” to the gigs. And I can tell you I was surprised how many layers of ‘exclusivity’ there is. At the bottom is the lowly, ticker holding punter of course. Then there’s student volunteer crew members, then there’s the regular crew, then there’s the press, then there’s the press with yellow stickers (for photo access), then there’s VIP, then there’s security, then there’s Artist, and then there’s Pitchfork management that truly have ‘All Area Access’. Oh and there’s all manner of combinations too.
Despite the layered cake of permissions and access, my ‘press pass + yellow sticker’ did let get to places that I would never have seen in the past as a normal concert goer. This manifests itself mainly in the form of the ‘Press pit’ which is a rather sweaty way to call the gap of space caught between the main stage and the crowd. I don’t know if I ever noticed before, but if you’re all the way up the front of the crowd, you’ll see all the press photographers all running around switching lens or switching camera bodies trying to get the best line of sight. Since I’m not a ‘hardened veteran’ to all this yet, I spent more than a few moments at each stage, taking photos of the press crew as they would dive in and out of each others way. Somehow, instinctively each photographer knew just how much room they need to position themselves, get the shot and not be in someone else’s way at the same time. And naturally, it’s also the best place to see the band as you’re less than ten feet from the artists. Good for photographers and great for photographers who are also fans of the bands.
While this is might not be true at all concerts, the photography policy at Pitchfork was a strict, ‘first three songs’ limit. I still don’t have any idea why this was in place. But the effect put every photographer into an urgent rhythm It also means that you can’t arrive late, or you’ll be shooting from the crowd which could mean being back a couple of hundred feet. Not good. Even with a 70-200L f2.8 lens plus 1.4 tele-extender, you’re basically screwed for any getting any decent facial expressions.
And while this was true for the two main stages, Aluminum and Connector, all sorts of security breaches were happening at the Balance stage. The Balance stage for the last couple of years was treated as the runt of the litter, being off to the side of the main park. Last year, someone had the idea of providing shade for everyone in the sweltering temperature but unfortunately this only created a heat sink since the tent didn’t really let the steam produced by several thousand sweaty ravers to escape. Thankfully this year saw no tent.
All of Saturday, I soon realised that I could rely upon the guys on security at the Balance stage to let me and every other press photographer do their work. At any time, for as long as we wanted. We even got to go backstage where we could hang out with the artists, get a cold drink and very importantly, use their clean porta potty. None of the heavy handed security douche bags from the other two main stages were here. Just the cool ones. Yeah for the Balance stage! And all this sweet dealyness was going great for everyone involved until Dan Deacon played his set last Saturday afternoon, where everything went nuts.
Now remember that the layout goes like this: the band plays on the stage, then there’s a four foot wide gap where the press photographers shoot from, then the front of the crow starts and goes back hundreds of feet. Three distinct zones. But for Dan Deacon, this was way too conventional. He managed to play his set from within the crowd itself, right at the front, up against the fence. Unfortunately, I get only wind of this when I arrived late and there’s a road block of people all jammed up. I start to assert my ‘press pass’ powers and shove my way to the entrance. I then see what the deal is with Dan’s set and also see that all the press photographer’s are now jam packed in the press pit, shooting ‘backwards’ toward the crowd to get shots of Mr. Deacon. Which meant that it was SOL.
Then it hit me! The only place for me to go now is onto the stage! Since no one is using it, I might as well use it to give me a good overlooking vantage point. So I shove my way to the stage staircase with some other later press shooters who have the same idea. And this is where my luck came in. I’d made friends with one of the crew earlier that day and as we all approach, he say’s, “No one getting up on the stage. No photographers allowed.”
“I’m letting only two in. You and you. Go!”
I scramble up onto the stage, I take the closest corner and start to scope out the sprawling mess of activity in front of me and it’s just plain insane. Dan is screaming into a microphone, and completely surrounding him are three thousand people all going nuts hanging on his every word. Immediately below me, in the press pit is the rest of the press shooters fighting to get a clear shot of Dan and his iPod shuffle (no joke). And every second I’m up on stage shooting down into the crowd and Dan Deacon, I’m thinking two things, “I can’t believe what I’m seeing” and “If anyone gets hurt they won’t be found until the morning”.
Total, complete, chaos with a heavy electronic beat in the background. What an experience.
For the rest of the night and all of next day, the security tightened up like a drum and to over compensate for yesterday’s debacle, the security on the Balance stage started to enforce not only the three song limit, but a new ‘four photographer’s at a time’ rule. Great. So you’ve now got three songs, about 12 minutes, spread out over a dozen photographers who now have to take turns. That gives you about 60-90 seconds each.
What do these people want from me?
Since this is not a very sustainable situation and I have a full shot list from this one stage to do, I come up with a new strategy. A strategy that only a rookie like me could have come up with it seemed as I didn’t see anyone else try it.I remember thinking during the Girl Talk set the night before, the people in the crowd are in the best position to take photos since us photo chumps were stuck on the side lines waiting to be blessed with a minute of access. So I said, sod it, I’m joining the crowd!
It takes a lot of jostling, a lot of ‘excuse me!’ and a lot of not too subtle camera nudging to work my way through the crowd and eventually I find myself at the front of the crowd, right up against the low fence that previously separated me from the crowd. And let me tell you, life on the other side is totally different. Rather than fighting for a spot to shoot from, you’re fighting for room to jump around to. I think sometime after getting my fancy schmancy press pass, I forgot what it was like to just be a fan.
For the next four hours, I hung out with three thousand other fans and danced, screamed, jumped and took photos like everyone else, to The Cool Kids, Cadence Weapon, and The Field. The strategy only really paid off when the final show on the Balance stage was kicked in. Klaxons is a English rock band that is apparently making kids krazy everywhere they play. And due to the fact that everyone in the crowd was really, really into the band and going totally nuts when they started their set, security wasn’t letting any press take photos for at least the first two songs. Since I was already embedded as part of the crowd, they happily admitted that they couldn’t stop me from getting my shots of the band.
And while in theory this plan sounded smart, getting in focus shots of the band in near total darkness (shooting at ISO 3200) with the weight of thousands of fans crushing you against a metal railing while supporting 10lbs of camera and lens, is not easy. Eventually they let the press in but by then I was already done and ready to be extracted. Security was kind enough to pull me out of the crush. The night ended on De La Soul on the main stage, but I’m going to remember those Krazy Klaxon fans for a long time.
The artists featured are:
Saturday
Ken Vandermark’s Powerhouse Sound, Califone, William Parker Quartet, Grizzly Bear, Battles, Fujiya & Miyagi, Professor Muder, Clipse, Dan Deacon, Girl Talk, Yoko Ono
Sunday
Deerhunter, Fred Lonberg-Holm’s Lightbox Orchestra, Menomena, Junior Boys, Nomo, Sea and Cake, Jamie Lidell, The Cool Kids, Cadence Weapon, Klaxons, De La Soul
All in all, a throughly thrilling, fantastic, ear drum ringing weekend of photography.
A slideshow of photos from Saturday.
A slideshow from Sunday is now up!
Odd question, it might seem, but it yielded some interesting questions about where we’d go to eat, shop, hang out. Thanks to Brittany Belgardt for the opportunity to talk. 
