By Sunlight came through town again and played two shows- one at the Che Cafe, and the next night at Bar Pink. I've never been to either place so I didn't know which venue it might better, but Modern Rifles was playing with them at the Che, so that sealed the deal. First up were By Sunlight's touring partner, Bright Light Fever.



Only heard a couple songs, so I only have a total of four shots of them. Che Cafe doesn't serve alcohol so as soon as our beer runner arrived, several people made use of the picnic table and trashcan in a dark part of the back yard. Sorry guys.



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I got By Sunlight's album from them last time they were in town and playing at the Soda Bar. It's worth checking out- very lush and dreamy with some brief math-y sections.



There's no front lighting here, so everything is backlit. Not so fun, since I can't get any of their faces.



Except the drummers, they're actually lit the best for once.





Trying to shoot with extremely low shutter speeds in order to get some detail in the faces made getting sharp images tough, but there were some interesting side effects.



The 1/8 second motion blur can be nice 0.1% of the time.  But mostly, I stuck to silhouettes.



Backlighting emphasizes texture, something Jack's curly hair has plenty of.





They'll be back in town in September and they're a good band to bring your girl to see too, even if she's not into indie rock.

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Modern Rifles are a harder band with singalong vocals. In my opinion they have the best sounding recording to come out of Black Box Studios, from a production/tone standpoint.



The bass player, Daryl, is from North Carolina so we chatted about Polvo for a bit. Polvo's got a new album coming out in September, and they'll make a stop in San Diego on their next tour. A lot of the Rifles' friends have spent time in Cleveland, it was weird to hear the names of old clubs I used to go to in high school like the Grog Shop, Phantasy, and Peabody's Downunder.
 






Being a heavier band, they move around a lot more too so not many sharp photos.



Except for Brian, the drummer.





It was a fun show to see despite the sparse crowd, but having to sneak Miller Lite like a teenager and deal with crappy lighting means I'm not shooting here again. This place and The Office are on my Don't Bother list.

The best part of this place is the bathroom. It's bright and colorful and I got what I thought was a unique shot.



And then I found that Natalie beat me to it by almost two years with the girl's bathroom which looks almost identical.