For those of you out there wondering when I’m going to post up the photos of Shirock’s performance at 12th and Porter, you’re about to get some icing to go with your cake. Chuck, the band’s lead singer (pictured above from 2008), got in touch with me recently. The band has a bit of time off between touring, and he has kindly offered to do a guest posting on here to introduce the new images. Maybe he’ll even talk about a few juicy stories from the road too.

As I was archiving some of my photos from 2008 to free up some hard drive space, I noticed this set from a tour of the Jack Daniel’s Distillery. For some reason I didn’t get around to processing them at the time, so I’m pleased to share them with you now – better late than never right?

Forget Opry Land, whenever it comes to a famous site in middle Tennessee I always tell people that the one place they should go is on the distillery tour. Lynchburg, TN, the city now famous for Jack’s best-selling No. 7, is about an hour and a half outside of Nashville, but the drive to get there is very scenic. It’s almost as though the area exists outside of time, uncongested by cars and buses and tall buildings, hidden away in untouched countryside. The location is key, as the company still uses the same spring that Jack himself found so many years ago to start it all. The process of creating a Tennessee whiskey is to slow drip the water through charred maple wood before it is treated and then aged in barrels. If you are able to get out to experience the tour for yourself, make sure to come with a working nose – the smell of the maple wood is something that I will cherish for a long time.

Round two from a week ago. This time the lighting was a bit more cooperative. The Elms are originally from Seymour, IN, but like Shirock they’ll be all over the place during the coming months while on tour. If you’ve got some vacation time to burn, the South by Southwest festival in Austin, TX is right around the corner and both of the aforementioned bands will be in attendance.

Rick Brantley was one of the two artists that opened for Shirock last weekend at 12th and Porter. Often performing acoustically, he chose to plug it in this time to present his softer blend of southern rock. Combine that with the close quarters atmosphere of 12th and Porter and it was a really fun way to kick off the evening.

The trouble with solo artists, especially those that don’t move around a lot on stage, is that the lighting director may keep things a bit too simple. In this case, it was all red back-lighting, or all blue back-lighting without much transition in between. For a photographer, that makes the task a little bit more difficult since every photo starts to look exactly the same under the same lighting. I’ve played around with tones a where I could to spice it up, so let me know what you think of these and if it’s a good direction for other future concert shots.

This past weekend Shirock kicked off their Everything Burns tour. More than just a great way to launch their new debut album of the same name, Everything Burns is also the non-profit charity started by the band. 100% of the proceeds from each event will go to their charity, or to another local organization which the band is partnering with in the 14 cities which they will visit this month.

I caught up with the guys on Saturday for the tour’s second stop here in Nashville at 12th and Porter. Opening for them was solo artist Rick Brantley, followed by rock group The Elms. Both were a lot of fun, and I think the Elms will be making a few more stops on the same tour, so if Shirock wasn’t enough of a reason to get out to one of these great concerts, now you’ll have two. Visit each of the artists websites to learn more and view upcoming dates to mark your calendar with.

Shirock’s new CD is showing my audio system some loving, and I’ve got somewhere around 1000 photos to go through from the warm Februrary night (no sarcasm, it was in the 60s this weekend). Should be another busy week – scenes from each performance on the way soon.

Without further ado, let’s wrap up the rest of the 2009 Detroit Auto Show. For those unable to attend this year’s convention, read on to find out what you missed.

No celebrities were on hand to get interviewed by VW’s latest spokesperson… or spokes-car as it were, but I’ve got to hand it to VW for creating a pretty entertaining display. Not only was the original Beetle “Max” there to add a few sound bytes, but so were all of his commercials. Rather than putting random words (see Prius display from Part 1) or scenery of Germany on their large monitor overlooking the acre or so allocated to the company, they rotated in Brooke Shields, astronaut Richard Searfoss, and others to praise das auto. Once you’ve spent all that money making the commercials, it seems like a good idea to replay them whenever possible.

My eyes were focused on something else however…

Continue reading Detroit Auto Show ’09 Roundup (Part 2) »