Susan Solo – Photographer | Traveler | Adventurer

Tag: concerts

  • Depeche Mode at Nissan Pavilion

    If you read my post a few months ago about getting to see Depeche Mode in concert for the first time, you know how excited I was to finally see them, and I wasn’t the least bit disappointed at the show last night. If only the 32 year-old me could go back and tell the 12 year-old me, “It’s okay, you’ll get to see them eventually,” that would have been helpful. Although if I found out it would take twenty years for the appropriate stars and planets to align in order to see a concert, I might have had another dramatic pre-teen meltdown. The show was incredible and a good mix of nostalgic songs and newer tracks. And thankfully the weather held up, so it wasn’t at all like the last time we were at Nissan Pavilion for Radiohead. Professional photography equipment wasn’t allowed and they did do bag/pocket checks so I’m glad I didn’t try to sneak my gear in, but I did take a few snaps from far away with the point-and-shoot.

    Just showing you where our seats were (in the covered section, but not super close to the stage):




  • Lily Allen and the Camera Snatchers

    Friday night my friend, Jenn, and I went to see the Lily Allen concert at the 9:30 Club. She sounded absolutely incredible – she blew me away with her performance. Jenn and I both agreed that it was better than last year’s show. The only bummer of the night came when I got the tap-tap-tap on my shoulder from security asking me to surrender my point & shoot. Darn! I have to admit that I did see the “no photography at the artist’s request” sign on my way in, but I thought I’d give it a shot anyway. We were up on the balcony (great view, but pretty far away), so I only got about two crummy shots in before the confiscated the camera. I got my camera back at the end of the night unharmed, so just to show that I was there, here’s one of the bad shots. 🙂

  • On a School Night

    When I was about twelve, I was living in Colorado and my absolute favorite band (as in, I literally wore out tapes and CDs from playing them over and over), Depeche Mode, was touring. It was their World Violation Tour after the release of the album, Violator, and they were playing in Denver. I was a very dramatic pre-teen/teenager, and I desperately-more-than-anything-in-the-world wanted to see the Depeche Mode concert with my friends. Unfortunately, both shows were on school nights, and I might have even been grounded at the time, I can’t remember, but ultimately my parents said, “NO.” And that was with a capital ‘N,’ capital ‘O.’ I seriously felt like I was going to die, like I needed to go to the concert just as badly as I needed air to breathe. I can remember pacing back-and-forth in my room like a caged animal, listening to the Violator CD, and just aching about the fact that my friends were at the show and I wasn’t. (I told you – dramatic!)

    Well, now that I’m all grown-up, I do completely understand why my parents would have been a bit hesitant to let me run off into the city with a couple of other twelve year-olds, unsupervised, on a school night. Not to mention I was an absolute grouch before school in the mornings and they probably didn’t want to make that even worse by letting me stay out super late. BUT as I said, I am a grown-up now, and if I want to go out on a school night I CAN. And I will!

  • The Killers at the Patriot Center

    Chris and I returned to our alma mater last night to see The Killers perform at the Patriot Center. It’s been a few years since I was on campus, so it was fun to reminisce a little bit before the show. And the show itself was simply (pardon the pun) killer. It had all of the showy aspects you’d expect from a band who hails from Las Vegas: effects like pyrotechnics, smoke and confetti, an awesome set with a hypnotizing light show, and just fantastic energy. As a side note, I happen to like the effects – I think they’re fun. The band sounded amazing. I like both the old and new songs, so I thought the set list was a good mix, but the crowd went nuts for the Hot Fuss and Sam’s Town stuff.

    I was patted down from head-to-toe by security before the show, so I wasn’t able to bring my SLR with me this time (good thing I didn’t try), just the point-and-shoot. So all I have are a few technically imperfect images from far away, but I’ll post them for fun anyway:



    I’ve got:

    But I’m not a:

    Confetti!

    Pyro!

  • Smashing Pumpkins…Again

    Smashing Pumpkins…Again

    Chris and I found out that out of the two nights that the Smashing Pumpkins were playing at DAR Constitution, the second night was the more “nostalgic” night with a set list that included more of their classic songs. So, we decided to go again last night especially since those are the songs that I’m a fan of. I definitely enjoyed last night’s show more than the first night. We had better seats, although our view was still blocked because of the one girl that was standing up in our section (we couldn’t stand up to see over her because we would’ve blocked the people behind us). Regardless, we still had a good time. As a side note for my photographer friends, I smuggled my 5D, 50 1.2 and 200 2.8 inside to get some better shots this time. It was still tricky trying to work around the girl in front of me, but every time she’d sway to the right or at least put her arms down, I could get a fairly clear shot of the stage. If anyone was at the show and wants to borrow these images from my blog, feel free! Please just link back to my blog and/or leave my photo credit on the image if you post them somewhere else online.






    These next two are for Gary, who was sitting next to me and wanted a shot of Jimmy all lit up: