Peaceful Freezing Feeling

No, I haven't fallen off of the face of the planet.  Net yet, anyway.  The calendar just seems to be going by so fast all of the sudden.  I looked up The Old Blog an noticed only two updates for the month.  That doesn't mean that I haven't been busy.  I've been fortunate enough to shoot a few concerts this month  But, a quick look at the calendar showed me that here we suddenly are at the end of another month.  Before all of the loud guitars and spotlights, I used to drag myself out of a nice cozy bed on freezing cold mornings to watch the sun rise on our fair city across the St. Lawrence River.  Or, as we the case here, to watch the moon set.  However, despite the moon being full, it still looked rather small against the giant Montreal skyscrapers.  I still took the photograph because I didn't want to admit defeat and drag my frozen toes back with nothing to show for my early morning trip.  It was taken at f/9, 1/60secm ISO 400 at 41mm. It was still a nice little peaceful moment.  Go out and find a few of your own before the season comes to an end.

Aldo Nova At Casino De Montréal

We're a little bit backed up on getting my concert photographs up here on The Old Blog.  I suppose we will catch up at some point, but this would be a good time to remind you that my concert photographs can be seen in a much more timely manner by visiting V13Media, which you can do by following the link.  If you'd like an even more direct route to my photographs, you can visit my personal page over there but using the following link.  "Neon lights, shinin’ brightly make your brain ignite."  That’s a rather appropriate description of the Casino de Montréal.  It’s also one of the opening lines from “Fantasy”, the hit song that helped make Aldo Nova a star in the early 1980’s.  Both worlds collided this past Saturday night and Montreal fans got to double down on an evening of musical awesomeness.  The Casino de Montréal hosted the return of one of our own, Aldo Nova.  Incredibly, this was his first show in Montreal in 35 years.  The man has won Grammy Awards.  Written songs for Celine Dion, Faith Hill and Jon Bon Jovi.  Yet, for the last several decades he has decided to work from the shadows. Helping others and sharing his incredible talent.  Montréal turned out to celebrate the return of their prodigal son.  The building was sold out, and the people rose to their feet as their guitar hero made his way to the stage to open the show.  Aldo Nova opened the concert with “Modern World”, a track from his Blood On The Bricks album.  Though it has been a long time since the song was released, the lyrics are still rather spot on today.  This was followed by a couple of older songs.  “Monkey On Your Back” from Subject: Aldo Nova really got the crowd rolling and “Under The Gun” allowed Aldo to unleash one of his epic guitar solos.  With every note, the crowd cheered longer and louder.  “We came here to rock!” shouted Aldo to the crowd.  He suffered a frightening neck injury last year, but looked to be in great shape here.  Taking the time to salute the crowd in both English and en français, Aldo shared some stories with us.  He mentioned how incredibly proud he is to finally be back in the town where he grew up.  “Don’t wait so long before the next time!” came a cry from the crowd.  A sentiment shared by all who were there, judging by the cheer of approval from the crowd.  It was also a chance for his now adult children to see him play.  “Ball And Chain” followed.  A song that Aldo mentioned had been inspired by a stripper from Longueuil that he was seeing at the time.    Much of the Fantasy album had been inspired by her, he chuckled.  A couple of songs were played from the Twitch album.  The experience making that album had chased him from the industry for a time.  “Tonight (Lift Me Up)” and “Fallen Angel” may be associated with bad memories, but on this night they received nothing but love from the adoring crowd.  “Blood On The Bricks” brought the people to their feet again, with some urging from guitarist Jack Frost.  Frost has been Aldo’s touring guitarist for the last few years and was an untamed bundle of energy during the show.  His entire backing band was fantastic.  “Fantasy” brought down the house before the band returned with “Medicine Man” as an encore.  All of the photographs were taken at f/3.2 while using various different shutter speeds, ISO settings and focal lengths.  Here are the rest of the photographs that I took of Aldo Nova as he performed on the Casino de Montréal stage.

If you would like to find out more about Aldo Nova and his music, you can do so by following the link to his website.  A big thank you goes out to Aldo Nova's management team at Lansky Entertainment, Jimmy Kay at The Metal Voice and Christopher Gonda of V13 Media for getting me a pass to photograph the concert.  As always, it is very much appreciated.   Always a man of the people, Aldo stuck around afterwards to sign as many autographs and take as many pictures with the fans as he could. A real class act, it's easy to see why his fans love him so much.  Don't you dare miss it when Aldo Nova performs in a town near you.