Taasha & Tristan + Timothy Carroll @ The Troubadour 28-05-10

I knew I hadn’t edited the photos from this night but then found that I’d already drafted the post.  It’s strange reading thoughts from 11 months ago, especially when no one knew at the time that The Troubadour would be shutting in November.  With reference to the first couple of lines, The Troubadour ended up in joint first (together with The Zoo) for my most-photographed-at-venue for 2010.   I did go and see the band at the Powerhouse show they announced at the gig and took some terrible, terrible photos.  That’s a story for another time. In editing the photos I used a Photoshop Action that I’d created and called Troubadour Red, which took some of the nasty red saturation out of the photos, for the last time.  It helped but everything at The Troubadour always looked better in black and white anyway.

Five-tenths of the way through the year and surprisingly my most-photographed-at-venue for 2010 so far is The Troubadour, one of the my least favourite venues in Brisbane to photograph in due to its general darkness, its red spotlights and the difficulty in getting a good spot to photograph from.  It’s a troublesome place when everyone invariably sits down on the floor as it can mean a mix of human Tetris and Japanese torture positions (and I did get heckled for standing up the last time Bill Callahan played there) but equally difficult when it’s sold out (as it is tonight) and everyone stands up and needing to be really close to the stage to see anything means everyone is packed like sardines down at the front.  But you’ve got to go to where the good music is happening and this year this has meant The Troubadour more than The Zoo, which is usually way out in front when it comes to the venues I frequent.

Last time I photographed Taasha and Tristan, when they were playing with the full complement of The Audreys at The Zoo, I challenged myself by turning the LCD screen off and a plan to limit myself to 72 shots; essentially treating my digital as if it was a film camera and I was using two rolls of film to cover the gig (although I did go over my shot limit in the encore).  And last time I ended up with plenty of photos that I really liked.  This time around, with the benefit of a LCD screen and the ability to review shots, as well as not limiting myself to a set number of shots (I took 110 in total, 23 of Timothy Carroll, 87 of Taasha & Tristan, not a whole lot more shots than I had taken of them at The Zoo, but with only two band members this time) but ended up with very little that was actually any good.  It’s a shame as Taasha is a dream to photograph.  She said they’d be back in October and playing at The Powerhouse with the full band when they tour their upcoming third album, which she let slip is going to be called Sometimes The Stars.  I’ll probably see you there.

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