Spring Cleaning

I'm re-vamping the portfolio, removing photos that don't fit and in the case of the Pogues' 9:30 Club show, making a new home for them on my blog. It isn't that I wouldn't want to be known as a concert photographer, each week ticking off another show from the list of 100 acts to see before you die (or before they do?). But .. well .. take a look here, and tell me who the rock star is.

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Set one: Shane takes a drag from a cigarette and spits into the mike. The packed house howls and sways, and we raise our drinks and pretend to understand what he is saying. Shane plays on. His body is old and broken. His music is not. Two songs, and he takes a break, exiting stage left, down the stairs and into the blackness (or as Shane might say, "blech"). I get the impression that he is being taken away to his dressing room on a two-wheeled dolly cart. Set two: I raise my camera, a 1957 Canon rangefinder L-2, into the air and snap a photo. The bouncer points and tells me, "No professional cameras!" What this old thing? .. well yes the lens does come off .. but this old thing? Come on! "Fine" he says smugly, "Not enough light without a flash anyway. You're just wasting your time." snap, snap, snap. Thanks .. and in case you missed it, Shane is smoking on stage again.