What’s interesting about this and hopefully inspiring to other photographers on the rise out there is that this shot was not taken at a show that I was shooting with a photo pass.  There was no photo pit, no special access, no three song rule.  I was simply attending a concert with my friend and brought my camera along for good measure.  When venues have liberal photography policies, you never know what you’re going to walk away with so take the chance!

Also, I have some good news, The Pulse Magazine has given me my own concert photography column called rockSHOTS. You can check it out each month for a selection of live concert shots from shows I’ve shot in Massachusetts for that month. You can click the logo below to check out the first column.

The Cab’s Alex DeLeon

The Cab

Tom Higgenson of The Plain White Ts

Tom Higgenson

Chris Carrabba’s Dashboard Confessional, long known for his visionary songwriting skills that have grabbed hold of the heart of many an emo child, started out the co-headlining night with a lot of energy.  The crowd screamed the lyrics to old favorites like “Screaming Infidelities”  and newer songs including “Thick as Thieves.”  Dashboard closed out their set with a kickass cover of Pink’s new single “So What” with members of The Cab helping them out.   All in all, the crowd felt pretty  “Vindicated” after their solid set.

My favorite Dashboard shot of the night

Panic at the Disco, hot off their summer headlining gig on The Honda Civic Tour had changed the look of their set up a bit but still maintained that feel of The Beatles reincarnated.  The aroma of incense was afloat while smoke filled the air. With a generous mix of songs from their debut album A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out mixed in with new favorites from their latest release Pretty. Odd. The set list was a winner from start to finish. The band may have taken the exclamation point out of their name but it remains in their set offering up a kaleidoscope of sing-a-long hits. 

Ryan Ross & Brendon Urie

Ryan Ross

Full sets from all of the bands can be found here.  (And if you go back to April you can see my Panic shots from their shows on The Honda Civic Tour as well.)

Lajon Witherspoon of Sevendust Rocks the Ink

Brian Fair of Shadows Fall

Killswitch Engage

The new issue of Rocknation is out on newstands so check it out.  You can see some of my photos from Mayhem Fest as well as an interview with Buckcherry.  You can also check out each issue online here.

Grace Potter and the Nocturnals

Jakob Dylan

Throughout the day many amazing bands graced the stage(Grace Potter and the Nocturnals, The Pretenders, Jakob Dylan, Kenny Chesney and more).  All of this was just the warm up for the night to come.  The founding and current fathers of the show each took the stage for their own sets:  Dave Matthews,  John Mellencamp, Neil Young and of course Willie Nelson.

Kenny Chesney

Dave Matthews

John Mellencamp

Neil Young

Willie Nelson

It was a memorable day all around.  You can check out more of my photos from Farm Aid here. (Click on Photos from the menu)

To check them out, go to the Rocknation website and from the menu click on Newspaper Online.  It will provide you with a virtual edition of each issue!  Good stuff.  I’ve also included them in my links section.

In the next issue you can check out my interviews with Buckcherry, Papa Roach, along with some live shots!

 Since the show was in MA, BLG had the honor of headlining to the hometown sold out crowd and I don’t think the fans would have had it any other way.  Opening the show were The Maine and Metro Station, then it was time for Good Charlotte.  I’ve never shot or seen Good Charlotte live so it was nice to do both.  The lighting had small moments of greatness enveloped between a lot of not so greatness so I did what I could.

The Madden brothers bring a lot of energy to the stage, that’s for sure.  Fist pumping, booty shakin’ choruses that the predominantly female crowd was eating up by the spoonfuls.

Click on the photo below to view a slideshow of the Good Charlotte photos:

 For full galleries of both bands visit the TheyWillRockYou Photo Gallery.

The day stages started out with an assault to the senses.  I was able to capture 36CrazyFists, 5 Finger Death Punch, Walls of Jericho, Suicide Silence and Black Tide before I had to haul ass to the mainstage to catch Mastadon, Dragonforce, Disturbed and the main draw of the night - Slipknot.

In between I managed to run back to the day stage to catch the last song of Airborne and Underoath.  As much as I tried to catch every band that played, I did miss a few. 

The full galleries will be up on TheyWillRockYou.com just as soon as I finish going through the edit process with them but I’ve included a few to tease you metalheads.

Next up was Adam Levine and Maroon 5.  The lighting was spectacular washing them in beautiful shades of pink, green and blue.  Levine marched across the stage constantly but managed to stop and pose a few times which helped me out a bit.  They played hit after hit and the crowd really couldn’t get enough of him.  I think he gave Duritz a run for his money but I don’t know, I think the score remains:  Duritz: 1/Levine: .5 in the head to head Battle of the Adams.  Don’t get me wrong, Levine sounded Ah-MAZE-ing….but..Duritz was unstoppable. I’m pretty sure they’d both blow say…Adam Ant out of the water though.

Full sets from both bands are available on www.theywillrockyou.com (Click on photos from the menu.)