As I said in the past, I have a list in my mind, of bands that I must photograph, and some of these bands were very important for me, (well, maybe "important" is not the right word, maybe "significant" would be more appropriate), like milestones, bands that remind me of specific periods of my life, and one of these bands are surely Queens Of The Stone Age. I was a fan of them since their first album, actually even before, as one of my favourite bands at that time were Kyuss, the band where Josh Homme come from.
So you can easily understand that I was waiting to see this band from quite a while, even if now I would hardly listen to their music, and I had to photograph them.
Then, how they are live? Even if I could stay only for three songs, I'm quite trained to understand if a band is good or not even after one minute, and I can easily say that QOTSA are immense. Probably one of the best band I've seen live this year, not the best, but defo in the top 10.
Unfortunately to photograph them it wasn't so nice. Why? Lets start with the pit.
Essentially it was a simplified version of Kings of Leon's pit, they split it in thirds, and photographers can stay only on the side ones, no photos from the middle part, and once you are on one of the side, you are stuck there. Do you remember how I hate seated show because I can shoot only from the sides, so I get only two perspectives? Well, that's even worst, because I get only one side.
Now lets talk about the lights. Green backlit, more green lights, again green lights, and for a second I was thinking that was some sort of charity gig in favour of greenpeace or anyone related to nature, or maybe it was St. Patrick day, until we got some red lights, then I thought the stage was actually a big traffic light.
I can't say they were terrible, because I was expecting even worst lights (often I search the band I'm going to shoot on youtube to see how the lights were in their previous gigs), but while they were great to see and listen, they were no more than "meh" to photograph.
Also, because of the force perspective, I have pictures only of Josh Homme (from one side only) and their bass player, that's it. So, glad to listen to them, because they are a great live band, but next time I'll buy the ticket and I'll enjoy the show rather than try to photograph them.
Anyway, these are some of the best shots, I hope you like them, because for me they are "meh". As usual you can find the full set on my flickr page.