Venue: 4th & B
City: San Diego, CA
Set length: About an hour and a half
Tonight’s Lineup:
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Sunday Girl
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Monsters of Rock
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Dust n Bones
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Pearl
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The Iron Maidens
Pre-show banter…
I am going to try and keep my ramblings short on this review but there is a lot to say so advanced apologies if this ends up being a “The Stand” sized novel. I was in San Diego for 4 days at a Photography/Software Summit and skipped out on the Joe McNally presentation (which was a bummer to miss) to go see Pearl and The Iron Maidens, which I was excited for, at 4th & B! Once again, thanks to Phantom (Iron Maidens’ management) for the pass to the gig – he’s always been extremely kind and accommodating when I have asked about photographing the band.
So, my day started off at 5:00AM and pretty much spent the day hiking up and down the hills of the SD Zoo. I was able to take a quick nap from 5:00-6:00 and then I was off to grab some food and leave for the gig. Fortunately, the venue was about 6 miles from where I was staying so it made for an easy commute. I got there around 8:30 and the first band was already on as I walked through the door. I was armed with my Canon 1Ds Mark III, a 70-200mm f/2.8 and a 50mm f/1.2. I also had a Speedlight with me but I opted not to use it at all as the stage-lighting was pretty decent. My biggest enemies this night were the mic stands and the fact that I always seemed to always find myself out of place from the action – I was off my game tonight. Next time…
Reviews, comments, and possible putdowns for the Iron Maidens…
By the time the Maidens went on at 12:15AM, I was pretty spent from a long day and was starting to get really sleepy… until that first note came out of the speakers and I was immediately energized and good to go until the end of the set. Well, what can I say that I haven’t said about this band before? They have great stage presence, always have their sound dialed in, seem to have fun with the audience, and have picked a really hard band to emulate and still do it really well. They are one of my favorite bands to photograph and hope to do it again very soon.
Some highlights of the show include:
- This night’s show featured Nili Brosh on guitar, whom I had not seen with the Maidens before. She fit right in!
- Courtney being a little tipsy while celebrating her birthday and playing a short-but-sweet guitar solo
- Pearl and Scott coming out and singing on “Heaven Can Wait”
- Kristen got a big ol’ kiss from Pearl after “Heaven Can Wait” (at least that is what it looked like – Kristen had a surprised look on her face afterward) The proof might be in the gallery below.
- One of the bad points on this gig was the lighting. It was all over the place and didn’t have a rhyme or reason. The rig set up at the venue seemed to be kind of a mess from what I could see. It wasn’t until the end of the show that someone realized that the lights on Linda (drummer) were pretty much non-existent. Oh well, end the end of the day this was a minor infringement on the show.All in all, it seemed like the girls had a lot of fun and put on a great show of classic Maiden! Up the irons…And Phantom, once again; thank you very much for the chance to shoot the Maidens one more time.
Lastly, I have three other Iron Maidens galleries on this blog if you care to take a look. Links below the gallery.
www.TheIronMaidens.com
Just in case you want more Iron Maidens, here are a few past galleries I have posted:
– at Paladino’s
– at a Swap Meet
– at The Galaxy Theatre
