Jonathan Davis and (part of) his famous microphone stand (designed by Swiss artist H.R. Giger)
June is a busy month for Europe, musically speaking. Hundreds of bands go on tour, hopping from one festival to the next on weekends with their own headline shows in between during the week. KoRn had been on such a tour for just about a month and a half, and their final stop was in Zurich at Komplex 457.
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Swiss metal band Shakra opening the concert marathon at Sonisphere Switzerland 2011
Opening the festival at 2pm (so, shortly before getting up for those living in the rock n’ roll timezone ;-) were Swiss band Shakra. Their frontman John Prakesh is still “the new guy” for me (I’m so used to seeing Mark Fox fronting them), even though he’s been in the band since 2009.
Duff McKagan and his band Loaded at Sonisphere Switzerland
So, errr, well, I was at Sonisphere Switzerland. Interleaved with client meetings and tiny bits of sleep here and there, it was a two-day total metal insanity. Mental metal, if you will.
Redeem, opening band for 3 Doors Down's concert in Zurich
Finally Volkshaus was sold out again! 3 Doors Down attracted many people, and even concert photographers who couldn’t score a photo pass were seen paying for their tickets and watching like “normal people” (not me, I made sure I was on the list for this show weeks and weeks in advance :-) .
Avenged Sevenfold live at Komplex 457 in Zurich
Avenged Sevenfold and their fans seem to have grown up. Or at least older. Or maybe not? One of the front row fans, let’s call her…. “Marushka”, had her dad embarrass her when he walked to the pit, asked the security guy if he could step in (“I’m a father”), shouted for her (“Marushka!… Marushka!!!…. MARUSHKA!!!!”) and took a photo of her with his iPhone. Nothing against iPhones, but I wouldn’t have taken a picture with my D3 in that light…. well he probably needed to send proof to mom that their daughter still was alive or something. Maybe he was more excited than Marushka (who seemed perfectly old and mature enough to be standing in front row with her girlfriends…).
Roger Waters' mega production The Wall in Zurich at Hallenstadion
About 15 photographers from all kinds of newspapers, online portals, and with other excuses to ask for a photo pass showed up to take pictures. We were allowed to shoot 5 instead of the usual 3 songs, which was highly worth it.
Looking like the devil himself: Tom Araya of Slayer in Zurich at Volkshaus
Slayer were the main band of the night and had none other than Megadeth as an opening band (photos from their set in the previous post). While Megadeth had made sure to have brilliant lighting, we weren’t so sure about that for Slayer: I’ve shot them twice before, once last September (check those pics here) and once at Sonisphere (photos: here).
Dave Mustaine and Megadeth as opening band for Slayer at Volkshaus Zurich
The concert had been scheduled to take place in Basel, but was moved to Zurich, so there were a lot of French people in the audience. Even a French concert photographer in the pit – he’d driven all the way over to shoot Megadeth (this time opening band for Slayer).
Bagpipes and medieval metal with In Extremo
Light-wise, the trip to Justin Bieber’s concert certainly was worth the trip. As a concert photographer, we don’t always get blessed with good light. But I admit that I do prefer the music that In Extremo and their opener Fiddler’s Green play.
Justin Bieber at his concert in Zurich on April 8, 2011
We were about 10 concert photographers at Justin Bieber’s show. That’s quite a lot of camera-carrying adults standing in front of front row for the first three songs, but we’re all seasoned pros and know each other well, so at least for us photographers it wasn’t that much of a problem.
