Last night (Saturday, January 2nd), one of Kansas City’s most esteemed live music venues, the Record Bar, closed its doors for good. (Not through any lack of success, but as I understand it, solely on account of the property’s landlord refusing to renew the lease for various reasons.) I was there Friday night shooting Outhouse’s reunion performance in front of a packed house. But here I want to bring back a couple of oldies from the “early” days when I was still relatively new to photography. Rattle and Hum, Kansas City’s U2 tribute band, was playing a Friday night at the Record Bar in early May of 2007, barely a year after their own first gig there on St. Patrick’s Day 2006.
These photos from that show are a couple of my favorites from those days, and I think it was the same day I bought a brand new lens (a Tamron 17-50mm 2.8 that cost all of $500, lol) and was so excited about taking it out for the first time. (I had to check the metadata of these pics, but at that point I was still shooting on a Canon Digital Rebel XT, which I think that was the very next camera after the original Digital Rebel.) I hadn’t even begun to think about things like hot shoe flash photography, to say nothing of off-camera lighting. It was just the camera and the lens, and I was still learning and teaching myself; I couldn’t tell you what lighting ratios were nor had any real clue about getting paid to shoot (thought I had shot a couple of other bands for like $50 each earlier that year, lol.) I really wasn’t setting out to make money with it; I was just having fun.
I enjoyed several shows there over the years; here’s a fun pic one of the Record Bar’s co-owners, Steven, as my lighting test subject before I was set to shoot a gig with Shots Fired back in March of 2009:
And here’s another fun pic, a fake magazine cover I mocked up of Shots Fired themselves, shortly after Steven’s pic:
Lots of good memories from that venue; I may post more pics later on. I hope Steve and his co-owner Shawn eventually continue the Record Bar legacy at a new location, but if not, the Record Bar will always be remembered as one of the great music venues Kansas City has been fortunate to have.
Test 3