International Association Of Independent Journalists Inc.

[Maurice Ali]

TWENTY6HUNDRED LOUD AGAIN!


By Maurice Ali, FOF Inc./FOF RECORDS





Michael Atkinson really belting out a song!



On September 26, 2009, TWENTY6HUNDRED blasted eardrums at The Smiling Buddha with it's signature style of prickly lyrics and screamingly load music! I was there to archive the event and having done this for a while decided to try something new.




Various facial expressions of Michael performing!



Normally Shane would be here as he also has started to evaluate acts for FOF RECORDS, but he could not make it so I arrived and started to check out the entertainment preceding the main attraction. Funny that after so much kidding and poking, everyone has given me the "thumbs up" to really give the organization a go. Anyway, I was here to take in TWENTY6HUNDRED's performance and take some snapshots.





An artisic photo of the band!



This time I was trying different things. You can actually get a feel as to who moves around the most from that long exposure shot above. The other band members are practically stationary as Michael moves to the music! At least we got a blurred image of Michael as most of these types of shots have nothing recognizable......





Jim Burdon!


So I thought I would offer up some collages of the band. Wendel Shank and Jim Burdon always stay in character. But look a Randy Nolson the drummer. I swear this guy can be cool and collected on moment, and positively rabid the next. He probably has some anger management issues he manages by beating the drums like a madman!





Randy Nolson!






Wendel Shank!



I kept shooting. I used an SB800 Nikon flash which turned the dark venue into something that looked like we shooting a daytime open window shoot by the back patio! For all you photographers out there, this does not really convey the atmosphere when you shoot like this. Sure the camera correctly focuses and exposes the bright shot, but it just does not do it for me, anymore. One way around this is to use an old cinematography trick and shoot in good light and darken it in post. The photo below illustrates this. The one above is with that flash turning dark into a shot on the surface of the sun; and the bottom has been darkened a bit to keep some of the mood. I used to shoot these events with the professional D class Nikon cameras with no pop up flash, but for this one I used an old D70 pro-sumer camera with a pop-up flash because that flash does not put out the solar flares of the other flash and give you a chance to keep things real. So I just kept shooting and see what works and what does not work.







As for the performance, well it is classic TWENTY6HUNDRED. They focused on mostly new stuff as this band is very creative and always evolving. Michael and his mates in the band have been with us from the beginning and so we will continue to follow the development and archive their climb up the ladder to recognition and success.

http://twenty6hundred.com