Amazing Baby appeared with Cold War Kids at the Wilbur Theatre in Boston on 2 April.

Per a recent press release:

“Amazing Baby, a Brooklyn-based five-piece, will be releasing their debut album this summer, but they’ve already earned praise in the States and overseas with the release of their four-song Infinite Fucking Cross EP last year. (Check out the tracks at myspace.com/theamazingbaby) With a sound that can be described as Elvis Costello meets Black Sabbath meets the California coast line with a dash of urban sprawl added in for good measure, Amazing Baby’s psychedelic rock has captured the attention of Rolling Stone and Spin and have recently been featured in The Fader, Interview, Under the Radar and Nylon. They have opened for friends and fellow Brooklyn natives MGMT, Bloc Party and more. Their sets at this year’s SXSW ignited a rapturous response as the band showcased what they have in store for their full-length release.”

“…epic psych rock full of pipe-organ synths and reverb-dunked guitars.” – Rolling Stone

“Amazing Baby’s Infinite Fucking Cross EP and the album they’re recording are psychedelic and spacey, but they are also bulky, acerbic…” – Fader

I hadn’t known anything about them before getting the notice to go check them out, and I was quite glad I did.  Pretty tight, really nice to photograph even though I was kind of stuck in one place.  Check out their streaming tracks on MySpace.

Oh and if you see them live, take a look at the smallest and cutest drum kit I’ve ever seen. He gets a lot of sound out of it; between the drums and being so close to the speakers I had to put earplugs in, which I have not had to do lately.  Also the coordinated head-banging during the last number made me laugh. It went really well with the song and I wonder if they did it that way on purpose … watching these guys I generally prefer to shoot in larger venues with a photo pit but there is something to be said for being up really close, a foot or two from the musicians, where you can see every eyelash and glint of sweat on their faces and watch them when they’re just first starting to get a good following and they suddenly are seeing what it’s like to be “rock stars.”  It must be a pretty heady feeling to stand there and have a crowd of people right there in front of you, so close you can just reach your hand out and touch them, watching your every move.

Amazing Baby is Will Roan, Simon O’Connor, Doc Laaxo, Matt Abeysekera, and Don Devore.
Amazing Baby • Myspace • Facebook

Technical notes: Possibly the best lighting EVER. I just assumed it would be dark and so had the ISO at 2000. They tore into the first song and I could see that was way too high so turned it down to 1250. Still too high, turned it down to 800. Then to 640. Then to 400. I think I ended up with it at 640 just to be safe in case it got dark fast but I really could have even gone down to 200 for some shots. It wasn’t too bright; it wasn’t like they were performing in a dentist office but I didn’t have to use noise reduction on almost all of them. (Contrast to the few shots I got of Cold War Kids–almost everything I shot of them was unusable b/c it was nearly pitch black for 95% of their show.) I used the Tokina 11-16 and my 17-55 for most of it; pulled out the 24-70 for a few shots. I did plan to go to the balcony and use the 70-200 for a few but it just didn’t work out. I wish every show had lighting like theirs. Bright but still with atmosphere.

This was a little difficult otherwise due to having to pretty much stay in the same spot, over on stage left, and having to take every picture from almost the same angle.  I was standing next to another photographer I know (Julian Furtak, who shoots for Prefix), and laughed that we were both going to end up with pretty much the same kind of shots.  Oh well it happens sometimes.

Clicking on the thumbnails below will bring up small previews in a Flash slideshow. To view the large versions, go to the set (click the thumbnail, then click All Sizes above the image) or slideshow on Flickr