Ireland’s own Bell X1 at The Paradise on 18 September

Bell X1 (that’s bell ex one, not “bell eleven”) traveled all the way from County Kildare in Ireland, with a few stops beforehand, to greet a full house at The Paradise. I was actually surprised it was not completely sold out in advance; the band is one of the biggest in Ireland and regularly get crowds (10,000+) that wouldn’t fit into the venue even if they broke every fire code in the city. Ah well, U2 dude and his one-word name. All things in good time.

Continue reading for more pictures, full gallery, and shooting notes

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Bell X1 has made a bit of a name for themselves over here via their music appearing on a few TV shows, such as The O.C. and the hit series Grey’s Anatomy, as well as well-received appearances on Late Night With Conan O’Brien and the Late Show With David Letterman. I don’t watch the first two shows and I missed them on Conan & Letterman, but I do try to listen to a variety of Irish bands and had heard recordings a few times before seeing them. Here to promote Flock, their latest CD, which although released in North America in February actually came out in Ireland and the UK a couple of years ago. For some reason it didn’t make it over here until someone noticed that this band was consistently selling out fairly large venues and thought, “Hey, isn’t there an untapped market somewhere … somewhere where there are a lot of people who have traditionally taken warmly to Irish bands???” And so their push in the US began. Good call there.

Last March when they were here their tour bus caught fire outside their hotel and caused tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of damage. Thankfully nothing so negatively eventful happened this time out, as far as I know. Just making people happy with music.

Shooting notes:

It was pretty dark inside. Bursts of light but overall, dark, and a lot of red. In looking through my EXIF data, I can see I didn’t go below ISO 2000; also used 2500, 3200, and a few at 5000. I only brought one body (the D300) and used the 24-70 f2.8, 50mm f1.8, and 85mm f1.8. I wish I had brought my 70-200 because I ended up going upstairs in the balcony and would have gotten some good closeups with that although using the 24-70 got me some nice fairly wide angles. Once again (I am always amazed at how nice people who have been waiting for hours to get up front are) people were very kind about letting me go in front of them, next to them, between them, etc., and since I shot the whole show it wasn’t just for a couple of songs. I really appreciate this from everyone. I also had clearance to go behind the side barriers, which was very helpful, as I could get all those behind-the-band shots.

I was experimenting on the ISOs to see what would be better: to shoot high ISO and deal with the resulting sensor noise, or to shoot lower and thus underexposed, and push it in post. I think from doing this a few times it’s really going to depend on what kind of lighting there is at any particular show, but the bottom line is in *this* show I did not use noise-reduction software on one single picture. Now there is some noise in there but it’s not as much as I would have expected, at 3200 let alone 5000.

set list

Brian Crosby--playing guitar, keys, and every band's technologically necessary Mac laptop.

Bell X1 have just finished up their dates in North America and are off to Europe, starting with a show in Berlin on October 7.

Bell X1 official site

Bell X1 on myspace

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Acknowledgments:

Many thanks to Roger at Trick for fixing up the guest list and photo access for me, and to tour manager Foye for helping me out on site.