If you are not familiar with the band All Time Low, I suggest watching this trailer, it’ll prepare/ put you in the right mindset for this blog. => View DVD trailer
I finished up the A Day To Remember European tour about a week before my run with All Time Low started in Chicago. My parents only live three hours from Chicago so I decided to fly out a few days early and visit them. My plans were foiled when I got a last minute shoot in Florida. Damn, this was a rough one. Here is what my schedule looked like. The 16th was a shoot in San Diego as well.
11/11 – Nuremberg, DE
11/12 – Cologne, DE
11/13 – Hamburg, DE
* Tour Ends *
11/14 – Hamburg, DE => San Diego, CA
11/16 – San Diego, CA
11/18 – San Diego, CA => Madison, WI
11/19 – Madison, WI => Orlando, FL
11/20 – Orlando, FL
11/21 – Orlando, FL => Madison, WI
Tour with All Time Low
11/23 – Chicago, IL
The goal for this tour was to snag a bunch of candid, live, and a few press images for All Time Low to use on their upcoming DVD release. They had Jonathan Bregel of Next Level Pictures out filming the whole tour for their DVD. I met Jon for a quick second once before at Bamboozle, but never really got to hang with him. Come this tour I really got to know him and we still keep in touch, he’s a good dude and I suggest checking out his work.
Date: November 23rd, 2009
Location: Chicago, Illinois
Venue: House Of Blues
My dad dropped me off in the basement of the Chicago House of Blues. The venue is a rough climb, six flights to the dressing rooms.
We had a room at the Sax Hotel, about a thirty second walk from the House Of Blue’s front door.
After the show that night, we met, got all dressed up (some of more than others) and headed to Angels and Kings- a chain of bars that Pete Wentz, formerly of Fall Out Boy, opened up across the United States.
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Date: November 24th, 2009
Location: Chicago, Illinois
Venue: House Of Blues
Jack is absolutely obsessed with Home Alone, he watches it a few times a week. So after their TV show, Patrick drove Jack, Bregel and an hour from the venue to the original Home Alone house.
The show that night was sold out as well, two in a row!
Date: November 25th, 2009
Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota
Venue: The Myth
It was cold and windy, but that’s what Minneapolis is good at! The truck driver on this tour was a character but I can’t recall his name.
Walked with Jack and Rian to get some Panera Bread! My favorite, we also stopped at a candy shop per Jack’s request.
Back to the venue. Someone in the band had me take a picture of our dressing room bathroom so he could design his new place the same way. I forget who it was though.
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Date: November 26th, 2009
Location:Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Venue: Day off, hotel
Thanksgiving!
We had a total of three rooms split between a bunch of different bands. Every Avenue and Stereo Skyline stopped by for the day as well, I guess their tour was close. So many people, so much fun. I set up an Alien Bee with a softbox in the corner of the room and aimed it at the ceiling. I fired it with a wizard and it lit up the whole room nicely.
We went to a bar that night and celebrated together.
Date: November 27th, 2009
Location: Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Venue: The Eagles Ballroom
I use to drive up to this venue multiple times a month a few years back. Bregel did a few interviews on the top of the venue throughout the day. It was chilly and we were up five stories in the air.
Ian Planet, guitar tech for We The Kings. I met him while he was out with Envy On The Coast for his first tour a few years ago. Since then he has made his way through the ranks. I think his path went something like Envy On The Coast, The Audition, Hit The Lights, We The Kings, and he currently works for Train. I am not sure if I’ll see him around much anymore, but hopefully we will cross paths again.
The owner of The Rave was nice enough to show us around the venue. It was really old and had a lot of underground passages and such. Here is an empty pool that is located in the basement right behind one of the dressing rooms.
Jack looking’ pretty epic. Lit with my 580ex from behind him. I was running all over the stage setting this thing up and then running back to the other side, I need to get two and set them to different channels. Or maybe twenty, that would be wild.
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Date: November 28th, 2009
Location: Cincinnati, Ohio
Venue: Bogarts
I shot this by screwing my camera onto the top of my lightstand, holding it up, and extending it as far as it could go. After the show all the fans would crowd by the bus and security would have to fence everything off. After the band got cleaned off and decent, they would come out and sign for all their fans.
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Date: November 29th, 2009
Location: Detroit, Michigan
Venue: The Fillmore Theater
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Date: November 30th, 2009
Location: Columbus, Ohio
Venue: Newport Music Hall
I saw someone get hit by a car while riding a bike in Ohio that morning, it was rough. Then I ate some Panera Bread. My friend Andrea baked me some awesome treats and took me to the mall in Columbus, it was a good break. We ate at Chick-Fil-A, sweet tea is where it’s at.
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Date: December 1st, 2009
Location: Buffalo, New York
Venue: Club Infinity
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Date: December 2nd, 2009
Location: New York City, New York
Venue: hotel, day off
We had a day off in NY, stayed at a hotel a few blocks from Times Square.
That night we went to Morton’s Steak house, I have never eaten so much in my life, it was so good. I wish I could afford to go there everyday of my life. We headed to a bar to meet up with The Bigger Lights guys and hang out. The bar had a mechanical bull in the middle of it.The guy running the thing knocked me out on my first run. He did some kind of motion and I got smacked in the face so hard I didn’t know what happened. I hopped on and did a little better, rough times for my head. But I got a free beer!
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Date: December 3rd, 2009
Location: Boston, Massachusetts
Venue: House Of Blues
I had a shoot with the guys scheduled for that day. I scouted some locations around the venue and used Bregel as my model for testing light.
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Date: December 4th, 2009
Location: New York City, New York
Venue: The Hammerstein Ballroom
This was the big day, where they were filming the live portion of their DVD. They had something like eight cameras, a jib and a few Steadicams. Fun stuff to watch. The venue was beautiful, I think it held 3000…but I’m sure they squeezed a few more in for this show.
All Time Low had a guy with an Escalade shuttle us to and from Angels and Kings that night. Free ride woohoo. It was packed, but fun none the less!
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Date: December 5th, 2009
Location: Albany, New York
Venue: Northern Lights
I had a quick shoot for Glamour Kills in the AM. Set up a backdrop in the bar area and…
Shots shots shots shots shots shots
shots shots shots shots shots
shots shots shots shots shots
everybody (x2).
I thought it was funny, but really, we shot in the bar area.
Here is how one of the shots from the shoot was put to use.
Here was the set up for the last three images.
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Date: December 6th, 2009
Location: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Venue: The Electric Factory
Last day of tour. Everyone was ready to be done. We ate three different cheesesteaks throughout the day, each one from a different famous restaurant. I thought I was going to puke, I decided I didn’t really like cheesesteaks by the end of the day.
Funniest group of protestors I have ever seen. The only group I have ever seen protest an All Time Low show. Bugs me how some people just waste their skin. Oh well, it was a good laugh!
For the last show, the All Time Low guys thew about 950 bras on stage while We The Kings was playing. They had collected all the bras that were thrown on stage each day during the show, and stored them in the back of the semi.
Last, but not least. This is Nano, the other half of All Time Low‘s management team.
My friend Mitchell Wojcik ran the photo booth that night, it ruled.
Paulo Dourado thinks I look like one of the guys from Phineas and Ferb in the following image (guess which one). I can’t really argue with him on this one.
I know these are just a few photos of only me from the party, but I figured it made sense for this blog. If you want to see more images of other folk, scope these albums. album 1 :: album 2 :: album 3
The interior of the Deluxe DVD had over twenty pages packed with images shot on the tour. On the DVD itself the images were used for the home page, chapters, etc.
All Time Low has been really good to me over the past few years. I am not sure if I will be working with them anymore, but who knows? Keeping my fingers crossed.
best
ae
