Mexican Knives at The Rondo
On Friday night it was snowing like crazy, cold and fuck, and my knee was all braced up and unable to bend much. But I was determined to make it to The Rondo to catch Mexican Knives, who were in town from Detroit to play with locals Huttch and Water/Heart.
I recently picked up a new 35mm Rokinon lens, and this would be my second show with it. I was very eager to test it out in the abysmal lighting conditions provided by small clubs, and if I could mix that opportunity with the chance to see some sweet acts I was all about it.
Water/Heart opened the show with their old-school emo tunes. At this point I was really struggling with the lighting and getting proper exposure, but near the end of their set I was getting things figured out.
Mexican Knives played second, which surprised me as I expected them to headline. Everyone seemed to have got the memo though, because the place filled up right in time for them to start.
I really dig their drum and bass driven drone rock sound, and the crowd seemed to as well.
During this set I started shooting in live view, which made focusing easier and ultimately resulted in better compositions than I had with the first band. I also really started to appreciate the extra space provided by the 35mm, especially when going for those through-the-crowd shots I love so much.
It was during this set that I also became more comfortable with the depth of field capabilities of the 35, and while I don't think I got around to using that feature to its full potential it's got me thinking about future shots. I've been shooting on the 50mm pretty much exclusively for far too long, and am really excited to try out some new things.
This is my second time this year shooting Huttch, and the conditions this go around were much different. More beer, less weed, less light, more weird shit on stage, same fun indie rock.
Because I've covered this band before I tried to get a little different with the shots I was setting up, going a but more experimental and using a bit more of the dept of field I mentioned earlier. Some cool stuff came out of it, even if it didn't all turn out exactly the way I hoped.
On Wednesday I'll be back at The Rondo for Wintersleep and Fake Palms, and I'm really glad that I was able to do a test-run of sorts in advance of this show that I'm totally stoked for.
