A Year of Concerts: 2014

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Yusuf Islam / Cat Stevens | “Peace Train … Late Again” Tour | Nokia Theatre L.A. Live | 12/14/14 [Concert Review & Photos]

Yusuf Islam / Cat Stevens | “Peace Train … Late Again” Tour | Nokia Theatre L.A. Live | 12/14/14 [Setlist & Video Clips]

Jamestown Revival, Nikki Lane & Pete Molinari | The Troubadour | 11/30/14 [Concert Review]

Jamestown Revival | The Troubadour | 11/30/14 [Photos and Video]

Nikki Lane | The Troubadour | 11/30/14 [Photos and Video]

Pete Molinari | The Troubadour | 11/30/14 [Photos and Video] Continue reading

Jagwar Ma | Twilight Concert | Santa Monica Pier | 8/7/14 [PHOTOS & REVIEW]

CLICK HERE to check out other acts performing a Twilight Concert at the Santa Monica Pier!

In conjunction with G’Day USA, the Twilight Concert series presented “Australia Rocks The Pier”.

The headliner for the evening was the killer Australian band Jagwar Ma. I first got to see them perform at Coachella, and after my time in the photo pit expired, I made it a point to keep up with their music because I was duly impressed.

When I found out that they were scheduled to perform at the Santa Monica Pier, I circled the date in my calendar. Seriously … I was pumped to see a full set. In fact, being a music dweeb, I even lugged my LP of “Howlin” (their debut album) to the pier on the off chance that I could get some of the fellas to sign it.

Their set was terrific. They basically played their entire album (excluding “Did You Have To” and “Backwards Berlin”), and even threw in a couple covers. I was especially impressed with their cover of Nirvana’s “All Apologies”. It was unexpected, but truly great to hear.

Follow Jagwar Ma on Facebook by CLICKING HERE

CLICK HERE to check out other acts performing a Twilight Concert at the Santa Monica Pier!

Twilight Concert Series | Santa Monica Pier | Summer 2014

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Whenever I have friends visiting Los Angeles during the summer and they ask me for suggestions, I always recommend attending a concert at the Santa Monica Pier. After all, there isn’t a much better way to spend a summer day/eve, at the beach with a picnic listening to some quality music.

For the past 30 years, the Santa Monica Pier has been hosting an extremely well-curated summer concert series known as the “Twilight Concerts”. This year, their line-up is as impressive as I’ve ever seen it. This year I am planning on attending almost all of the schedule concerts.

Below are the bands that I’ll be checking out, and will be updated with blog posts of previews, Instagram videos and photo pictorials and reviews. If you don’t follow my blog, save this page in a tab to follow my summer at the pier!

JULY 10th

July 17th

July 31st

August 7th

August 14th

August 21st

August 28th

September 4th

September 11th

To see the full list of acts performing at the Santa Monica Pier as part of the 20th Annual Twilight Concert series, CLICK HERE.

Jagwar Ma | Coachella | 4/11/14 (PHOTOS)

Jagwar Ma is three piece, Australian psychedelic/dance band that formed in Sydney. Their first full length album, Howlin’, in my opinion, reminded me a bit of the Stone Roses, and being a Stone Roses fan, I wanted to check out their live set. After my time in the photo pit had ended (side note: I had problems with my camera settings, and a lot of the pics that I thought were good came out underexposed <- insert sad face here), I spend another 15 minutes laid out on the grass under the shade of the the tent to let their clean, unique sound envelope me. If I hadn’t had a schedule of bands I wanted to shoot over the weekend, I would have bought myself a beer, and stayed there sprawled on the grass, in the shade, until the their set had ended. I’ve been a bit hesitant to purchase their LP, but I think I’ll need to remedy that the next time I’m at the local record shop.

CLICK HERE TO CHECK OUT BLOG ENTRIES OF OTHER BANDS I SAW AT COACHELLA!

Coachella 2014 | April 11 – 13

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This year, I was lucky enough to get approved for a media/photo pass for the first weekend of Coachella. The photo pass allows me to take pictures from the photo pit of each stage, and being armed with an incredible lens, I’ve taken some pretty amazing pictures so far, and I can’t wait to sift through them all and post what I’ve been able to capture.

There were a few acts that I wish could have snapped pictures for (Muse, Queens of the Stone Age, Beck and Arcade Fire), but being a “newby” in the world of concert photography, I wasn’t selected to by artist management to have the privilege of taking pictures. Hopefully, the pics I post of the bands I saw here will help change their opinion of me for the future.

Each entry will contain a little bulb of my overall thoughts of what I was able to see, with a Instagram video post that I posted (my Instagram account is @Methodman13 … you may as well go there now while you’re waiting for the post to go up) and a photo slideshow.  I hope you enjoy the moments I captured as much as I enjoyed shooting it. Click on the name of the artist you want to check out to see the blog entry I put up.

Friday | April 11th, 2014

  1. Tom Odell
  2. The Preatures
  3. GOAT
  4. Dum Dum Girls
  5. Jagwar Ma
  6. Grouplove
  7. A$AP Ferg
  8. HAIM
  9. The Afghan Whigs (Unfortunately, the pictures I took during this set are unusable)
  10. Broken Bells
  11. Woodkid
  12. The Replacements
  13. Girl Talk
  14. Outkast (Unfortunately, the pictures I took during this set are unusable)

Saturday | April 12, 2014

  1. Laura Mvula
  2. Drowners
  3. White Lies
  4. Banks
  5. CHVRCHES
  6. City and Colour
  7. Julian Casablancas
  8. Kid Cudi
  9. Future Islands
  10. Lorde
  11. Pixies
  12. Empire of the Sun
  13. Pharrell Williams
  14. Pet Shop Boys

Sunday | April 13, 2014

  1. Fishbone
  2. Chance The Rapper
  3. The 1975
  4. Rudimental
  5. Blood Orange
  6. The Naked and Famous
  7. AlunaGeorge
  8. Little Dragon
  9. Lana Del Rey
  10. Motörhead
  11. Jhené Aiko

UPDATE: 5/9/14: It was a long, glorious, music-filled weekend of music. I think I may have ruined all of the future music festivals I attend because there really is nothing like being in the photo pit, even for only the first 3 songs, trying to capture “moments” of musicians practicing their craft and giving the audience all that they have. I will forever be grateful for the opportunity. Thank you, Goldenvoice. Thank you, Snoop. You made this music dweeb very, very happy.