Is impoliteness even a word? For the sake of this post, let’s say it is. I had a good evening last night hitting both Drop Trio’s CD listening party and the Charlie Sexton/Shannon McNally show.
I got to take quite a few pictures, which was nice, but ran into some incredibly rude people in the process. Somehow, taking pictures seems to create confrontation. I’m not sure why.
I headed out to Brazil to see Drop Trio around 8:30 or so. They were having a CD listening party for their CD, Cezanne. Really good live disc that I picked up at Cactus Records today.
Once their show got going, I started to take some pictures. I know the guys pretty well and have taken quite a few of them previously, so no biggie.
In order to get the lighting right in Brazil, which is a coffee shop with cement block walls painted a light color, I had to shoot with the Flash pointing straight up and tilted slightly backwards – less than 5 degrees.
This along with a diffuser is pretty common when trying to get natural lighting, especially in a place with really bad lighting like this one. In reality, there wasn’t much I could do to help this place anyway, but I gave it a shot.
About 10 minutes into the set, I’m tapped on the shoulder by this guy who leans into my ear and says, “If you keep flashing that thing, I’m going to fucking break it.”
Ok, before I get into my response, let me offer a bit of advice. I can understand that something like that might be distracting to folks. I definitely get that if you are right behind me, it could be a nuissance. No problem. All you have to do is politely ask me if I can move and explain yourself.
Now, what this dickhead decided to do was be a prick about it. I told him to “Fuck off”. What I wanted to say was, “You try and break this camera and I’ll wedge this Nikkor lens up your ass,” but there was no point seeing as how this guy was about 60, had long gray hair, a scraggly beard and looked like he just walked out of a Jimmy Buffet concert.
No doubt it would’ve been pointless. I just shook my head and moved figuring that if it was bothering him, it might be bothering others and there were better angles to be had at the other side of the place anyway.
I hung out a bit longer, took a few more pics trying as much as possible to flash in his general direction even though I had moved away from him. Then, I went over to the Continental Club.
This was a really good show. I’ve been a fan of Charlie Sexton for a long time and hadn’t seen him in forever. He was doing a sort of combo tour with Shannon McNally, a singer/songwriter he produced. He and his band backed her up then, after a break, did his set.
McNally looks like Norah Jones and sounds like Lucinda Williams channeling Stevie Nicks. She could’ve broken into Stand Back at any moment and if I closed my eyes, I bet I could’ve easily pictured Nicks in that white lace witch outfit. Wait, I could do that now…nevermind.
Anyway, she was very good and the band was excellent. When she was done, Sexton and the band rocked on a bunch of his tunes, most of which I didn’t really know because they were from his new CD which I got today. Lots of energy live.
Another picture oddity came up though. I wasn’t really going to shoot, but I got there and saw several people up front shooting, so I figured why not. After the McNally set, I spoke with a woman and asked her how it was going with her shots. We talked for a minute and she said the guitarist on our side told her in the middle of the set to stop taking pictures of him. WTF?
I dunno, man. I don’t get it. You’re a performer…an entertainer. Shouldn’t you be able to handle pictures? Weird. She said Charlie looked over at him when he said it and I kinda got the vibe maybe Sexton thought that wasn’t a cool thing to say to a fan. He’d be right.
I managed to hang out until the end of Sexton’s set when he brought McNally back up to do a song with him. The crowd cheered long enough to get an encore and they did a version of Tom Petty’s “American Girl,” which rocked.
Overall, great set and well worth attending. McNally is a very sweet girl. She was in the back chatting with fans. I got her disc and congradulated her on a great set. She was very polite.
After that, it was on home to crash. I got some good pics, especially during the McNally set. I’ll try to get those posted soon, but I’m backlogged on photos anyway.
Quote of the night from Sexton to a packed Continental Club, “It’s great you all showed up. It’s hard to get people out in Houston unless it is to a disco.”
Nice. 🙂