Steel Panther At Metropolis

It's not often that a band will come to town three times in less than a year, but when you're hot, you're hot.  Steel Panther visited the Metropolis last night, their third visit and second as headliner in just under a year.  Those of you who have been around may remember that I was able to get my camera into the Metropolis for their first visit last year.  There was no chance to repeat the experience during the second show as they were playing at the Bell Center, opening for Judas Priest.  However, when the tour returned to the Metropolis for a second time, it meant that I would have another shot at doing some guerrilla concert photography.  My partner in crime and I arrived nice and early and managed to grab a spot right by the stage, but I had to surrender it after the opening act because of an overly protective security guard.  I'll share that story when I put up the pictures I took of the opening act.  Don't worry though, there's still plenty of story to go around for this update.  Giving up my spot by the stage meant that I needed to find a new place to stand during the show, and I noticed a little pocket of space about 20 people back to the left of the stage.  I figured I'd be far enough back to be out of the sight from the overly protective security guard, yet far enough from the center of the floor when things tend to be a bit more, shall we say, eventful.  Sadly, I failed to take into account the amount of people who wanted to take part in such events.  Those who know me are well aware that I'm not a small guy.  I was never in any danger, but I also had no real desire to become part of the action. However, as people began rushing by in groups of five or more, not to mention the odd pair of legs that would pass overhead, it meant that my plans for the evening had changed.  I had originally wanted to be able to play with different apertures during the show, in hopes of getting the most crisp images possible, but instead of paying attention to the viewfinder, I ended up paying way more attention to those around me.  I did manage to follow some advice I'd gotten and used a smaller aperture than the f/1.8 I had used last time, but I would have liked to try getting even smaller. Oh well, there's always next time.  The first photograph was taken at f/4.5, 1/500sec, ISO 3200 at 50mm.  The second photograph was taken at f/3.5, 1/500sec, ISO 3200 at 50mm.  The third photograph was taken at f/4.5, 1/500sec, ISO 3200 at 50mm and the fourth photograph was taken at f/4.5, 1/200sec, ISO 3200 at 50mm.  Here are a few more shots  that I managed to take during the show.

f/4.5, 1/500sec, ISO 3200 at 50mm

f/4.5, 1/500sec, ISO 3200 at 50mm

As you may have noticed, my location meant having lots of hands in the air in front of me.  This meant trying to shoot between many outstretched arms, and also having a few shots get ruined by the odd body part that would suddenly come between my lens and the stage.  I tried to play around with different photo sizes, such as the 12" x 4" crop that you see in the fifth shot.  I've also tried to play around with certain brush modes in Photoshop for some of the other shots, maybe they'll see the light of day here eventually.  At the end of the night, there were empty cups all over the floor, several pairs of broken sunglasses and a shoe.  I guess that means that everybody had a good time, including the band who were happy to announce that the show was sold out.  Maybe we'll see them here again soon.