Club Freebird, Hondae, Seoul, South Korea -- A band I saw the other night and nobody can tell me their name, lol.

Last Friday night Julianne and I headed out to Hongdae to see a friend's band play. We both brought our cameras as we planned to take pictures of the band playing.

I picked up some Ilford Pro 3200 ISO Black and White film for Julianne's Nikon F4, and I had my new Speedlite 580 EX II flash, Canon D400, and Simga 10-20mm wide angle lens. I had yet to really try out the flash under real time shooting conditions, and looked forward to trying it out in the low light conditions of a night club.

The opening shots proved to be a little . . . ahem, blurry. But I still like the effect.

The band had a kind of Irish heavy metal sound and really good stage performance. I think they are one of the best live acts I've seen in Hongdae.

The lead singer had fantastic vocals for heavy metal, and his on-stage persona was funny but at the same time had an edge to it that suited the music.

The bass guitarist was also good, and exuded a subtle but powerful energy that meshed well with the rest of the band.

As you can see I did some editing of the pics using Picasa 3.

The electric guitarist and backup singer was awesome. He had a laid-back-let's-get-a-beer-and-shoot-the-shit personality offstage that I'd never have connected to the onstage performer seen here.

While I don't generally listen to heavy metal these guys were really good live, and I enjoyed their performance.

I'll leave the rest of the pics to your viewing pleasure with a few comments here and there.

With color pictures Picasa 3 has an Effects category with an option of Focal B&W that allows you to take a color picture and transform it into black and white with only the color focusing on the point of the picture that is most interesting . . . I really like the effect it has here.

In this picture it also works well to highlight the drummer in the back of the band. I considered going up on stage to take some closer pictures . . . but I didn't know these guys and some dude going up on stage while they're performing . . . I didn't want to do that. I've had strangers with cameras, and also VIDEO cameras, just randomly walk in while I've been teaching . . . I no longer get irritated by it but I know it's not cool to do to people without any warning.

This next picture is awesome! I love the poses . . .

Awesome!

I keep getting images from "The Commitments" in my head when I look at the pics here, lol.

This guy seriously has the the ultimate poses--I can't decide who has the best one-shot-moment pics: the lead singer or this guy--what do you think?

Okay, seriously, watch this The Commitments video clip and the lead singer from the movie band, and then take a look at the lead singer (below) again--I think they could be related . . .

I can't wait to see the pics from Julianne's Nikon F4--we're still waiting for it to be developed. I did black and white pics on my Canon and wonder if they'll be equal to the film shots . . .

After about 45 minutes of performing the end came with a big bang--awesome.

After the guys were done their set I went into the back and told them that if they email me I'd share the pictures I'd taken. I'm still waiting to hear from them, and once I do I'll update this post with the name of the band and each of the members.

I'll also find out where they're performing next and put that up too.

J

P.S. I finally started using my flickr.com page--here's the link where you can see ALL of the pics I took of these guys.