Andrew St. Clair

I met writer Kristen Y. Kim at the Cult of Youth Record Release show a couple of weeks ago. She contributes to TheMorningAfterPills.com and I told her if she ever needed a photographer to cover a cool show to let me know and Bear Hands turned out to be that show.

The lighting was a little dimmer than normal for the Knit, but workable. During Dinowalrus’ set, there were only a few dozen people in attendance and it was pretty easy to back away from the stage while using my 50mm f/1.4 and still get a full shot of the entire band. When using a 17-55mm f/2.8 I had to bump up the ISO to 2000. For Johnossi, lead singer/guitarist John Engelbert was constantly moving and I really needed to be shooting him with at least 1/200sec.

A couple of times, Englebert would jump up on his drummer’s bass drum and then dramatically jump off. Apparently, this is one of his trademark moves. Would have been a terrific shot, had the lighting been brighter. I’ll make sure to catch them in a more well-lit venue and get a second stab at it. Plus, they were really good. I want to check them out after they return from Europe. I don’t know why, but they remind me of a cross between The White Stripes and Two Door Cinema Club.

By the time Bear Hands came on, the house was half-full. They had a great stage presence, and were pretty fun to shoot. Especially since it was easy to move about the crowd. Halfway through their set, the band asked if anyone was going to SXSW and offered to give a ride, as they were packing up their van (which seats 12) the following morning at 7AM. Even giving the location of where they were going to be. If I didn’t have other obligations, I might have taken them up on their offer. I wonder if anyone actually did.

Anyway, see Kristen Y. Kim’s review along with my pictures in two parts on TheMorningAfterPills.com here & here.