Lots of people were at City Hall last night, some for this Mariano suicide scare [it was almost impossible for him to have tried to jump], but most for the Current TV concert at Dilworth Plaza on the eastern side of City Hall. The concert was, basically, a PR stunt to try to get Comcast to put the cable network [co-founded by Al Gore] into the Philly Comcast market among others. Currently is currently in 13M Comcast homes nationwide.
I took a bunch of shots, mostly in RAW [Nikon .nef] format at ISO 640. I couldn't get as close to the front of the stage as I would have liked, but hey. The shot above is a cropped and edited JPEG of the original RAW. The 'basic' JPEG co-captured simultaneously can be found in my flickr set of the event here.
The concert started off with Philly's own Black Ice, an incredible spoken word artist who is on HBO's Def Poetry. The crowd ate it all up.
Pepper's Ghost, a Philly band, performed next. Not really my style, but the lead singer got some cheers as he jumped down from the stage onto a landing and started dry fucking the landing. I thought it was pretty cheesy and a cheap stunt to get the crowd that was there to see The Roots to have a reaction. I credit him that much that he noticed that nobody was rocking out to their tunes. It was no deeply into the set Jimi moment, no siree.
After them was Suffrajett who got the crowd back into it. Their lead singer was rocking out first with a tambourine, then with the mic alone and for the last song, she brought out an electric fiddle and even belted out a solo from her knees with the strings of her bow tearing away.
Little Brother was up next, I never heard of them, but from what I could tell, they're an underground hip hop trio out of North Carolina. Here's their MySpace. They carried the energy from Suffrajett and got everyone bobbing their heads. The crowd around me [about ten deep from the front row] knew their lyrics and were rhyming with them.
Al Gore got up next. I expected him to be there, but it was still a surprise to me. I got a huge rush as he was announced. "The man that should have been President in 2000...." and the crowd went wild. People started screaming. It was cool to see him up there. It reminded me of the Kerry and Clinton rally in late October right before the 2004 election just across the way at LOVE Park. He urged us to create our own content. "Send us your television. Let us tell your stories, and let us put it on television nationwide." He called out to us. He urged us to fight for a two-way dialogue through television, something that we've lost.
Fishbone came out next. A really lively set. Their lead singer was all over the place, doing cartwheels on stage, jump kicks and then jumping down from the stage and over the fence right into the crowd.
Finally, the group everyone came out to see, The Roots, came on stage. They played a nice set, maybe five songs. The crowd really got rocking. Everyone around me was moving, shaking and enjoying the free show from Philly's finest.
Some other thoughts and observations... The crowd was almost entirely of the twenty-five and under crowd. One of the MC's gave a shout out to Campus Philly, so I'm assuming they hit the local schools up pretty hardcore. It was a great turnout. There were so many heads smoking cloves. I got a little bit of a headache from it. It was pretty thick. I'd say even more people smoking weed. Some seriously dank stuff. There were segments of content from Current TV in between the band sets, some got a little long and the crowd was getting antsy for The Roots, but hey, it was a free concert.
I was about halfway back... but that's why I bought the 300mm. I got there early and probably could have gotten in the press area (with that lens on I looked 'more professional' to the guy minding the gate). He opened the gate to let someone out and looked at me, held it open for a second, presumably to let me in, but I stopped on instinct... stupid instincts... he nodded and closed the gate on me.
Posted by: steve | October 21, 2005 at 11:08 AM
One more reason for me to get that 80-200 f/2.8 IF AD! Looking forward to your shots.
Posted by: albert | October 21, 2005 at 11:13 AM
Is it just me, or does Al Gore look like Don Vito Corleone in that photo?
Posted by: Matt | October 21, 2005 at 02:15 PM
He has indeed parted ways with the side part and gone with the part/slick-back. Don Vito styles. Maybe he thinks it makes him look more menacing, so the Right won't fuck with him. Or not.
Posted by: albert | October 21, 2005 at 02:21 PM