Andrew St. Clair

As previously mentioned, one of my favorite moments last year was shooting Marnie Stern at The Brooklyn Vegan Saturday Day party during CMJ. Afterward I took a couple of portraits of the band and chatted with them. Real nice group of people. Marnie & Co. put on a great show and I was more than happy to see them again. However, it slipped my mind that they were back in town and I almost missed it.

By the time I got to the show, I had missed Headless Horsemen (sorry guys), and only caught the last few songs of Tera Melos’ pretty intense performance. A portion of the crowd was moshing during Marnie’s set. She even had some stage divers. I asked her if that was normal during her performances and she told me “No way. That never happens ever.” She blamed it on the portion of the audience that came to see Tera Melos. However, I think Tera Melos energy carried over to Marnie and the band as they seemed to be have a bit more intensity than I’d seen previously.

I ended up using a speedlight for a portion of the show for a little fill. The lighting was okay without having to use a flash, but only when shooting Marnie, solo. Nithan & Vince weren’t lit well and were kind of playing in the dark. I shot with my 17-55mm f/2.8 at an average of 1/200 of a sec, at f/2.8-3.5 and an ISO of 1000 to 1600.

After the show, I hung out in the green room with Marnie who mentioned they were planning on going to Winnie’s in Chinatown for karaoke and invited me along. Nithan bowed out to hang with his brother and girlfriend, while Marnie, Vince, and 3/4ths of Tera Melos (as well as some friends) headed over.

Marnie wanted to do a Belinda Carlisle song that she heard in Walmart, but couldn’t remember which one it was. After looking on my phone, we determined it was ‘Mad About You’. As the night went on, the songs that the group had paid for had yet to play and after a while, Marnie was about to leave… but and I had no pictures of her singing. So, with some last minute convincing by myself and Nick from Tera Melos, we got Marnie to sing. I can’t remember for the life of me what song she sang. Anyway, Winnie’s and Marnie go way back, so hopefully she’ll get to channel her inner Belinda Carlisle, next time. Anyway, check out the coverage on BrooklynVegan.com