Austin City Limits

Took a break from the photos of my week in Savannah and went to the Austin City Limits festival. This is a three day event but we just decided to head out for the Saturday. Kate and Tim came through from Houston to stay with us for the weekend and we went there pretty early on the Saturday afternoon. It was hot! I think I've been spending more time than is good for me shooting conceptual ideas, hence the quartet of portraits above. I've got some more traditional views over in the flickr set (or as a slideshow)

I'd had high hopes of seeing The White Stripes but they pulled out earlier last week, bumping Muse up to be the headline act for the night. I didn't really know much of their music so didn't have a lot of expectations. They put on a great show though - fantastic visuals, high energy stage show and they rocked it out. I had a great day, all in all.

Standing, watching, reminded me of how much I've enjoyed the few attempts at gig photography I've done. The energy is hypnotic and as a photographer you get to be right in the thick of things, in front of the audience, right under the musicians. The hours don't fit too well with my schedule, the smoke and atmosphere isn't too great but Austin has all these smoke free venues so that shouldn't be too bad. The energy is such a rush that I'm drawn back to doing that again.

I was also impressed how well my little point and shoot camera (a Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX1) stood up to shooting in various locations and light - bright sun light, low concert light, the results were all pretty good and spectacular for a little camera.