Busy Music Week in Albany Photos: Steve Kimock Band 10/26/05; Oshe w/Brothers Past 10/27/05; Lo Faber w/ Raisinhead 10/28/05

It was a very busy week of music in Albany... just the way to finish up Rocktober.

First, there was the Steve Kimock Band last Wednesday at Revolution Hall. I got there late and only caught the last few tunes of the first set. I found out later that Peter Prince of Moon Boot Lover fame opened the show. I would have been there to shoot around had I known... someone should do something about his lack of publicity. Peter is always a fun guy to snap photograph and I'm sure he would have hammed it up..

Anyway, I forgot that Robert Walter was going to play with Kimock this tour. Actually, I didn't know any of Kimock's lineup so it was a very pleasant surprise to see Robert on keys and Reed from Jacob Fred on bass. Actually, the word is that Robert Walter's 20th Congress is now defunct.

I'm pretty happy with how the Kimock photos turned out. My effforts were subconsciously focused on working with light/shadow and bokah, but the photos I shot, in review, feel a little too focused and fixated on these elements.

I digress... the show was smokin' and the crowd was very receptive and appreciative. No sneering or yelling at loudtalkers required in Troy.

Next up was Oshe opening for Brothers Past at Revolution Hall on Thursday the 27th. Good to see Jake and the boys, along with John Haag, who was recently added to take over for Ken. Jake has a new keyboard rig that he has mostly mastered and it sounded sweet!

Overall I like how John fits in... but he's not as liquid as Ken was. Ken was all up and down the fretboard doing a quazi porngroove things. John is much more about the attack of notes and laying a good foundation for everyone else to play over top of. Both are great styles, I'm just not used to John yet.

I saw Brother Past's lighting rig behind the band and thought I would have an easy time shooting them with the eye candy lights they would provide. Wrong. It was a rave atmosphere, complete with mindnumbingly repetative bars. Even worse, there was never enough usable light in any one spot on stage to get a decent pic. Not one. And when there was, it was for less than a few seconds at a time. Between that and the dosed kiddies, it was frustrating so I packed it in and went home.

Friday I found myself back at Valentine's for the first time in ages. Now that local Albany promoter Greg Bell is (or will soon be) part owner of Revolution Hall in Troy, he's booking all the Capital Region jamband shows up in Troy. Howard at Valentine's has been working with Step Up Productions and bringing the hard core/metal/punk (whever you want to call the current teenage angst music) to Valentine's upstairs stage.

Revolution Hall had Raq on Friday, so local guys Raisinhead and Lo Faber were stuck with the downstairs stage at Valentine's. It was actually a decent turnout of jamband fans, considering they were up against Raq. It was a good time, but I was oh so tired and could only make it for a set-and-a-half. A long weekend was ahead of me.