A few reactions to shooting three shows in three nights

Earlier this month I ambitiously (foolishly?) committed myself to photographing three separate concerts on three consecutive nights down in Boston. That’s the foundation for this entry. But before going any further, I first want to talk about what this post isn’t. This isn’t going to be a step-by-step recap of the experience. That stuff is no fun to write, and I’m sure not that engaging to read (I say that in recollection of my Zion recap). This also isn’t going to be anything that resembles a concert review. That may end up on Nine Circles eventually. We’ll see. Instead, I’ll briefly share the “what” from the weekend - the shows themselves and the camera gear I used (reminder to self: this is a photo blog), and then dedicate most of the words to my reactions to the experience. It was a lot!

Friday 09/13/2024: Dozer, Gozu, Legions Of Doom, and High Desert Queen at Widowmaker Brewing. Saturday 0914: Leprous, The World is a Beautiful Place & I am No Longer Afraid to Die, and Fight The Fight at The Sinclair. Sunday 0915: Amenra, Primitive Man, and Blackwater Holylight at The Middle East. The Gear: Nikon Z6 II, NIKKOR Z 24-70mm f/2.8 S, NIKKOR Z 14-24mm f/2.8 S, NIKKOR Z 70-200mm f/2.8 S, tunnel vision filter for fun, Think Tank Retrospective 10 shoulder bag, Peak Design straps. Strategically located hotels for Friday and Saturday night. Got it? Cool. That takes care of the “what”, now let’s roll into the “so what?”.

I won’t lie, I was a little intimidated going into this weekend. Writing that out feels odd considering how frequently I attend and cover shows. But this was different. The logistics were more complicated and required a full immersion into a relatively unfamiliar place for multiple days, while navigating the experience on my own. It was a departure from the usual show routine. But sometimes, like when a favorite band is in the area, you commit first and figure out the details later. And sometimes, when you’ve already committed so far, you take it one step further just to prove something to yourself. The end result: A personally curated festival that served as a new challenge around a space I had been completely comfortable in for years. The thing is, I believe that there is always some anxiety before adventure. That’s just part of embracing the unfamiliar. We weigh that against the feeling of excitement, and the relationship between those emotions is what makes it an adventure. If there isn’t a little bit of personal challenge involved, does an event really fall into the adventure category? In most recent cases I rarely recognize the anxiety. Once you’ve experienced enough adapting becomes easier, decision-making feels subconscious, and actions are driven almost entirely by excitement (or worse, logic). That anxiousness, however, was present this time, and in a way I hadn’t felt in awhile. Not enough to make me hesitate, but enough for me to recognize and appreciate the challenge I had created for myself. Throughout the weekend my thoughts and actions felt more deliberate. I planned out multiple steps in advance when I would normally operate on autopilot. In short, I felt more engaged, more aware. The result? The reward was greater. I’ll never be able to articulate the energy I felt during that Amenra set so I won’t try, but that will go down as one of my favorite concert experiences ever. So that’s reaction #1: How much is gained through doing, or at least trying, hard things. We’re rewarded with feelings of accomplishment, an enhanced presence within those moments, and added confidence and trust in ourselves moving forward. And if things don’t work out? There is always something to learn that we can reflect on. That’s what we can achieve when we push ourselves. Every moment becomes ours forever.

Now I want to narrow the scope a bit and talk about the 24 hour cycles during that weekend. 6PM through 2AM became the working hours - constant moving, lots of caffeine, thousands of photos, navigating tight spaces within dense clusters of humans, nonstop interaction with strangers. Elevated heartrate, aching feet, knees, shoulders, and neck. Yet this… this is where I was comfortable. Comfort in physical discomfort. In motion, existing anonymously in a sea of faces, passing through the periphery of so many, as they pass through mine, while applying my passion to capture the passion of others. It will never get old. But then there were the days. 8AM to 6PM(ish). Hours divided between photo editing in hotel spaces and wandering around, usually in search of more caffeine. As one who normally takes pride in being alone, unkept, and content in those spaces, this was different. I learned that it’s one thing to be comfortable alone when all the other situational factors are familiar and in your control, and entirely another to reach that same positive introspection when nothing is familiar, including the routine. No matter how nice the hotel room was, how good it felt to stretch out and be off my feet, no matter how relaxed I should have felt in those calm, quiet hours… they were still the loudest and heaviest internally. Discomfort in the comfort, if we want to connect that back. There has been a lot of heavy in 2024, both good and less good. It all came up. It became a conscious effort to slow down in these moments, control my thought processes and find better balance. But as the hours went by this also became more manageable. Reaction #2 was a reminder that it is important to always hold time to process alone, wherever you can. We’re always going to face heavy. It’s inevitable. But like physical discomfort, it is also something we can adapt to and learn to navigate more effectively and productively if we let ourselves.

And finally, reaction #3. This one, which connects to the entire experience and all the thoughts above, is this: routine is the enemy. In challenging myself that weekend, and in the discussions that followed it, I was reminded of the words in this video I first saw at a film festival some years ago. No, I have no plan to bike 7,000 miles, but the message is bigger than that. When we are settled into a routine we are losing time. Our brains aren’t activated. We aren’t engaged. And my favorite perspective, we aren’t creating memories. Those hours, days, weeks are just… gone. There is nothing to look backward on. That time holds no space within us as we move forward. That’s why days can feel long while the years fly by. When we face the new and unfamiliar, when we are challenged and when we embrace discomfort, we are creating time. We’re giving ourselves critical moments that will forever alter our lives moving forward, and the importance of those moments will feel even bigger when we reflect on them. The way we think, the way we interact, the way we adventure will change. So, despite feeling like a fleeting couple of days at the time, the impact of that weekend will last for years specifically because of all of the above. Three concerts, three nights, three reactions. And in the end, this was the main point I returned to the White Mountains with.