Still buzzing from my whirlwind group shoot for Polvo, I went back inside the club and camped out at the front of the stage. The show wasn't sold out, but it came pretty close and was packed with fans. I ended up in the same position as last year when I shot them at the Casbah, so the identical vantage point would give me a good idea about if my skills have improved at all over the past year. Unfortunately, it meant that I would not be able to get any shots of all four members in the same frame.







Since I did duotones last time, I decided to try them again this time too, although I've moved away from this sort of interpretive style of post-processing over the past few months. For full color photos, click on an image and it will take you to the full gallery.



Just like for the openers, the sound was horrible. The vocals were totally buried under the music, and the band was visibly annoyed. It was also their last night of their tour, so they might have been anxious to get home. Touring might be fun every once in a while but I don't think it's any way to make a living, especially once you're a bit older and have someone waiting for you at home.



With all the other photographers at the show, I caught a few of their flashes in my shots, but that one was the only one where it added to the image.





The new album, In Prism, is awesome! To be honest, I was hoping for a return to the frenetic style of Today's Active Lifestyles, but this album is much more like Cor-Crane Secret. The off-kilter riffs are there, just not as overt. They sound like a much more mature band that doesn't need to prove anything anymore, they focused on just writing the best songs they could. Polvo was always a band based on guitar interplay, and that hasn't changed. The guitars rarely play the same thing, instead they play off of each other, and the basslines are full of imaginative chord choices under the melodies. Brian Quast is a more rock-based drummer than the original drummer, something I noted last year which was confirmed once I heard the album.

A band is defined by its drummer. Put a jazz drummer behind a rock band, and it's going to have a jazz sound. In this case, the more straightforward drumming minimizes the stops and starts that Polvo is known for. The change in the sound resulted in an album where the guitars are more concerned with evoking emotions and a nostalgic feeling than playing to the math-rock tendencies that they always renounced int he first place. When I told Ash that this was now my favorite Polvo album, he agreed and said it wouldn't be the last one. That's the best thing I heard all night.