Andrew St. Clair

On Friday, I went to McCarren Park to catch Yellow Ostrich, Sharon Van Etten, and Beirut. I didn’t shoot the show (outside of about 10 photos), but I did hang out with some friends, post-rainstorm/double rainbow. The organizers and crew did a bang up job because not only did all the bands start on time, but they all sounded great! Speaking of sound and friends, I saw sound man extraordinaire, Mark Knight, who was running the soundboard for Beirut’s set. In fact, throughout the whole festival, I ran into dozens of fellow photographers that I hadn’t seen in a while, old friends and acquaintances I’ve made from other shows, not to mention musicians I’ve gotten to be friendly with. Always nice to see a friendly face at a show, but this was x 20. Just a very nice atmosphere throughout the fest.

Near the end of Beirut’s set I needed to head out to shoot Colin Langenus and his new band, Colin L. Orchestra at Coco 66. Colin graciously helped me move from Astoria to Greenpoint and I was more than happy to return the favor and shoot him and his very large band. Unlike the show at the Steve Madden stage in McCarren Park, their set started about 35 minutes late and I didn’t get to see the whole set, because I was on tight schedule and had to get to The Knitting Factory before the place filled up with Surfer Blood fans. But from what I saw it was pretty cool.

Lucky for me, despite a decent sized line, I was able to get into the Knit just in time to catch the very end of Grooms set (damn). Then shoot Eternal Summers and Surfer Blood. I’d only seen videos of Eternal Summers from CMJ when the band was a two piece. Now, they’ve added a bass player and the band definitely has a richer sound. 

A few songs into Surfer Blood set, I decided to follow my friends Liza and Brendan to another show, but suddenly, the crowd started to get a bit gnarly and I decided to stay. Lucky for me, I did, because lead singer/guitarist John Paul Pitts walked into the crowd with his guitar which made for some fun shots. You can see my photos of Surfer Blood and Eternal Summers over at TheMorningAfterPills.com