Noahm

I Ain't Just Another Photograph

9.30pm, Union Square, January 22: it was my birthday, and it was freezing. I tried to warm my hands up: I tangled them up with my scarf, but it didn’t really work out. Two blocks, two blocks and I was there, but those two blocks just felt like 10 avenues.

I got there 10 minutes later and my VIP/Photo passes are waiting for me at the will call. I got there when the supporting band, Emarosa, was playing a hardcore/emo/electronic set and I wanted to take my camera out of my bag but it was just too cold, I decided to walk up the stairs and enjoyed a coke and just sit down, enjoy myself as I had just turned xx years old.

There’s one nice thing about the VIP area at the Irving Plaza: the backstage area is right behind the door, so if you want to just say hi to Matthew (lead singer of Funeral For A Friend) you can just open the door and go up to him (but the security guy might stop you before you reach him).

I had to wait about 20 minutes between the two acts, 20 minutes that I used to remember FFAF’s songs that I used to listen to when I was younger. Because even though Funeral For A Friend might be categorized as a “emo bands for emo kids”, I do think there’s something more behind that band, they are not like the emo bands we have over here in America. In fact, Funeral For A Friend was around way before most of the emo bands that we know, starting out in 2001; in 2003 Funeral For A Friend was touring with Iron Maiden, and in 2004 FFAF headlined two of the biggest festivals of the world: Reading and Leeds festivals.

I took my cameras and went in my favorite area: the pit. The lighting was particularly hard to manage but, using my skills and changing my cameras’ settings, I pretty much worked it out. Matthew kept running on the stage which made it even harder, while Kris stayed in the back left making impossible to get a nice shot of him.
Although FFAF had just released their new album (Memory and Humanity) at the time, most of the songs they played were from the three early albums including songs that they usually don’t play live.

After an hour sharp of electric guitars, Matthew thanked the crowd and said “I don’t know how you guys can handle this cold, it’s friggin cold out!!!”. The crowd tried to scream “encore” but seems like Live Nation, the company that owns the venue, doesn’t really like the “encores” and just started to play some shitty music on the speakers.

Here are some shots of the concert:

Noahm.