I’ve been a long time fan of Imogen Heap, as in, I had iMegaphone on cassette tape back in 1998 and my old friend Ryan Obermeyer did the art work for Speak For Yourself. When I heard that she had chosen the Granada as the venue for her Dallas performance I had an internal SQUEEEEE! Think flaming gay man with flailing arms excited running down a hallway excited. But as most know me, I am a calm natured in real life and not so ready to start fires with my gayness, so I kept my cool but with a big smile.

The Show

I unexpectedly managed to get in during the sound check for Immi. When I say unexpected, I mean I didn’t realize she’d be doing sound check so late. She literally left the stage minutes before people entered the venue.

My good friend Eva and I sat and watched as Immi tested various equipment and songs in her non-stage clothes and her simple hair up in a bun do. It was one of those “damn this job is so awesome” moments.

Then in a unbelievably packed to the hilt Granada Theater I watched Back Ted-n-Ted and Tim Exile play with what I like to call “toys” on stage, working their craft to the delight of the crowd.

When Imogen hit the stage she did as I expected, wonderful. She’s got a charmed presence on stage that is endearing to fans of her music. Her tinkering with the equipment, song restarts and mumbling to herself into an open mic during the show never felt like a disappointment, it just added charm to the show.

She played nearly an equal amount from both of her mainstream albums and nothing from iMegaphone. One of my favorite songs from Eclipse, Bad Body Double was presented as almost more of a rap version than the album’s version. With Buffi Jacobs of Polyphonic Spree Immi performed another favorite, Aha! which I have always thought of as very much like a Tim Burton/Danny Elfman composed song with Imogen Heap doing vocals. Come to think of it, even the tree and lighting for the tour almost seems like early Tim Burton (but a little more feminine).

During Hide and Seek and Just For Now Imogen “played the crowd like an instrument” # which admittedly sent chills through me as I heard the perfectly synchronized voices of the people below rise up and meet with Imogen’s vocals. It was one of those moments I live for when seeing an artist perform live.

Behind the Granada I waited in the cold along with many other fans to get an autograph and a photo with Imogen. While it was chilly, it was worth the wait. She’s just as pleasant in person as she is on the stage. She even got the group of fans to sing Happy Birthday to a girl named NayNay which I’m sure made for one super happy fan and a wonderful birthday present!

The techie in me took the time to put together an RSS feed of links to postings all over the web about the show using Yahoo Pipes and Imogen’s ingenious idea to use hashtags/tags for every show on the tour. You can click here to view it. Also embedded below are some photos and videos I took. Enjoy!

Imogen Heap at Granada Theater youtube playlist

This photo shows one of the many attempts to corral the kids into a family portrait.

I’m pretty sure it doesn’t matter who’s kid it is, they are going to be hard to handle come nap time (which is about the time we ended up doing the shoot), bad timing.

Of course sometimes you nail a great shot that just leaves you giggling and it just shows the children as they really are.

I’ll share the edited ones when they are done of course.

I’m now convinced that taking photos of children at play is the best way to get a great shot.

Take this set for example, I just whipped out my camera at my nieces birthday party that was at a local gymnastics center. I had no intention of taking photos but the colors at the place were so vibrant I couldn’t resist.

I'm not the princess you think I am

I'm stuck, seriously..

They Call Him George

You can see the rest here on my myspace

To be fair, I have had the time to crop and bump up some colors on these photos since I used them for my final project (last minute idea). Now if I can keep my interest up in photography whenever the new semester starts I’ll be heading in the right direction. Sometimes school just takes over all my free time and I can’t make room for the really fun stuff.

Till the next blog, comment away..

I’m going to be taking photos for my Black & White photography class (really? photos?) and I’m brainstorming on an idea and figured I’d reach out to my social network people to get your feedback.

I’m trying to take photographs of actions that require two people to do them but there will only be one person doing the action. It’s meaning is to convey a sense of loneliness and or longing for someone to do that action with.

I’m trying to think of what actions can I photograph? That’s where you all come in. Leave me a comment telling me what you think could be a good idea for an action that requires two persons. I have some ideas but would like to have as many as possible so I’ll have some backups.

I’m glad to say that I didn’t miss the opening band called Grand Ole Party.

They were quite fun and worth seeing. One rarity for me occurred for me, I actually bought a cd from an opening band! The band reminded me a lot of The Gossip with their catchy drum beats and female lead singer. (I included a video of them from another live appearance below).

The second band wasn’t a hit with me. They were called “The Bird and the Bee” and aside from technical difficulties, they just sucked. I mean really really sucked.

Like opening band sucked, like trapped in an elevator listening to bad muzak versions of 90′s grunge music bad.

I can only assume they were put in the middle because the lead singer of Grand Ole Party was used for backing vocals for Rilo Kiley.

Now after being tortured by the sucktastic band that was up last we were privy to what had to be the longest setup ever for a band. I, along with the rest of the crowd surrounding me seriously were tired of the constant checking by the sound guy who btw really needed to re-evaluate the skinny pants. Not that he didn’t fit in them, it was that he just had no ass.

See more here

So finally, after all of that.. Rilo Kiley entered the stage to a very very enthusiastic crowd and just ripped right into “It’s a Hit”. Every last person in the crowd knew the lyrics! I felt like such a poser or something. I just got into them about 2 months ago and just sorta knew the songs but didn’t know them. They played from about 10:40 till around 12:15. Thankfully they played all of my favorite songs and for almost every major song the crowd sang along, which could have been annoying but it made the evening more fun.

Grand Ole Party Stuff

Here’s a link to a 2 videos of Bjork & some photos are below…

Video 1

Video 2

Link to photoset on flickr for ACL 2007. 

Basically I was supposed to move multiple images into one and “meld them”. Well, lately I’ve been listening to a lot of heavy metal and stuff like Necropolis: The Dialogic Project by DJ Spooky so it heavily influenced the image. That and my love of the Feast of Fools podcast also helped because it’s where 2 of the images came from. (thanks SAL-E)

This isn’t the final image, still need a few touch ups but it’s pretty close… (tell me what you think)

Here’s the original images….

Me Chilling on the boat…

Early Morning Walks for views like this..

My Photos… 

Matty’s Photos