We've already arrived in November, which means that Rock-tober has officially come to an end. But what a Rock-tober it was here on The Old Blog. We ended up shooting four concerts, and what better way to bring the curtain down on our musical month than with a show by The Beaches. It was the great Dick Clark who would often say that music is the soundtrack of our lives. I certainly believe that to be true, and if there was to be a special album that would be dedicated to my time as a concert photographer, the side one, track one song would have to belong to The Beaches. Though I had already photographed several outdoor concerts put together by some local communities, my very first official photo pass was given to me for a show by The Beaches almost five years ago. I'd like to think I've grown a little bit as a photographer
during that time, but there is no doubt that The Beaches have grown as a band. They've gone from headlining the Studio TD to probably the second most prestigious concert hall in town, the MTelus. It's been said that adversity is a great teacher, and The Beaches have certainly been through some adverse situations over the last few years. They changed managers, were dropped by their record label and gone through some relationship issues. However, The Beaches took all of that adversity and used it to produce what is probably their best album to date, Blame My Ex, which was released in September of this year. The lead single, Blame Brett, spent four weeks at the top of Billboard's Canada Rock Chart, and has led to a very popular tour. So popular, that every date of their current tour across Canada has been met with Sold Out signs at 
venue doors. The Beaches have gone down a hard road, but come out on the other side even better for it. Speaking of the other side, while the other photographers and myself were waiting between sets, we were joined outside by a group of friends of The Beaches who were in town to take in the show. One of them, Nolan, ended up getting separated from the group which led to some goodhearted fun as we jokingly asked each other where Nolan was for the rest of the evening. Most people look for Waldo, but we were looking for Nolan. Hope he enjoyed the show...if he didn't get lost going through the crowd....just kidding. The first photograph was taken at f/3.2, 1/500sec, ISO 3200 at 41mm, the second photograph was taken at f/3.2, 1/100sec, ISO 3200 at 24mm and the third photograph was taken at f/3.2, 1/500sec, ISO 6400 at 24mm. Here are several more photographs that I took of their performance.
