Goodnight Sunrise at Harvesting the F.A.M. Fest

Last weekend I was super excited to checkout Toronto's Goodnight Sunrise in Windsor as part of Harvesting the F.A.M. Fest. I caught them by chance at one point last summer, and they were rad, so the chance to see them again, and outdoors, sounded fantastic.

After a day working with Windsor Hackforge at W.A.V.E.S. Fest I figured it would be sweet to have a few drinks and catch their early set down by the river.

Unfortunately, the weather decided that it was an excellent opportunity to dump record-breaking amounts of rain on us, so the show was moved to The Windsor Beer Exchange, and the set time pushed back by over three hours.

So those couple drinks turned into a few...turned into a few more...turned into a bunch plus some.

And then the music started!

And the drinks kept coming.

And I still decided that grabbing a few shots was a good idea.

Now, to be fair to myself, my dislike of flash was as much a factor in less-than-great photos as my overindulgence, considering how dark TBX is, but I certainly wasn't doing myself any favours.

The first couple photos are of local songstress Crissi Cochrane, and I just realized that this was also my first time shooting one of her sets. Surprising, considering her popularity and the number of times I've seen her, yet there it is.

For these ones I can tell that I was feeling it, but maybe not quite as much as during the GNSR set. The composition still turned out decent. but the focus isn't quite there.

I usually find that when I'm drinking even if I can get the settings all correct, I tend to fuck up the composition by leaving about five times the necessary amount of headroom. These ones turned out alright, with only a little cropping necessary to make them presentable.

It also helped that as a solo artist she was right in the little light that was available, and didn't have anyone else to cast shadows on her.

The same could not be said for the next set, unfortunately.

By this point I had enjoyed a couple more, so the headroom issue became much more apparent, and four people on the tiny, dark stage of TBX made for a lot of shadows and exposure issues.

There are still a few usable images, but overall these aren't the greatest.

But they can serve as a decent reminder of why not to drink so much if I plan on shooting a show, or maybe of why to skip the shoot if I've had more than a few.

The show itself was great fun though! This band is totally worth catching if you ever the the chance. They bring an energetic performance of eclectic pop-rock tunes and mother-fuckin' keytar (I really can't get over that).

While I may not have been the best judge, I did find the mix to be a little muddy, and unfortunately this is a problem I've noticed more than once at this venue. I still appreciate what they do there, of course, and will go to shows there on occasion, but I sadly don't enjoy performances on their main level as much as I wish I could.

Drinking less would probably help with all of the night's issues though.

But it was still a stupid fun night, so whatever.