Tuesday, October 20, 2009

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.

4 comments:

  1. The band in question is the first round heroes. A great fun band to watch. They're playing 2moro tonight in Itaewon with us (Seoul City Suicicde), The Treomors and ...Whatever that means. It's gonna be an awesome night. Come on down and join in the fun, bring your camera as well if you can as your photos were damn sweet.

    Here's a link to the event if you're on facebook

    http://www.facebook.com/#/event.php?eid=246226087720#wall_posts
    (Punk Rock Party...Free)

    Cheers,

    David

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  2. Hi. Great post! I'm John, the guitar player from First Round Heroes. thanks for putting up the pictures!

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  3. Glad you like the pics....I did leaver my email with one of you guys to send you the pics but never heard back...oh well.

    You guys are fantastic performers and it was great taking pics of the band.

    Cheers,
    J

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  4. you know what? i played the drums in freebird last year --angela

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