Free concert in the park.  Burlington's Sound of Music Festival. Shitloads of people, hot, sweaty, alone in a crowd.  Missed all the opening acts.  Idle Sons, The Spicoli's, and No Motiv.  I got there late with friends but they were NOT interested in trying to get to the front.  I was.  On a mission from God.  Shoot Finger Eleven at this fuckin festival.  Now normally, bashing up to the front of a crowd like that would be NO PROBLEM, but after 3 heart attacks it's a whole different game now.  At least it WAS.  Mentally.  This was my first big outdoor festival type gig after death.  Yeah, I actually DIED for about 10 seconds and was SHOCKED back to life with copious voltage.  Fun stuff.  You think you had a good trip on those mushrooms or acid?  Try death.  Much more trippy.  ANYWAY, I kicked ass and got to the FRONT of this massive crowd.  Literally hanging over the railing shooting from the front row.  Squashed all my fears of overheating and keeling over in a mosh pit!  Supposedly there were as many as 70,000 people there that night!!

There were a couple arseholes I coulda lived without at the front of that crowd but it's to be expected. The security were no help either.. they were in the way more than anyone else!  I kept having to yell at the fuckers to move over cuz their melons were blocking my view.  Made my way all the way up to front row and can't see the band through the melon patch.  HEAD!!!! MOVE!!!!  At least they were cool about it and got the fuck outta the way.  The show seemed real quick but it was a full set, almost identical to the week before I think.  Not that I'm Mr. RememberTheSetlist.  I can't remember what I had for BREAKFAST at the best of times.  No, senility hasn't kicked in, just a bad heart.  Fuck off.

I got bashed around so much that my camera settings got changed umpteen times resulting in a batch of INTERESTING shots.  Most of these photos really SUCKED so here's the only salvaged shots I could muster up.

Do yourself a favour.  Go see these fuckers live..  I remember them back in '97 opening for the Summersault Tour featuring Our Lady Peace, Tea Party and I Mother Earth.  The guys in charge of the photo pit actually wouldn't LET anyone in to shoot them because of lack of organization or something, so I don't have the OLD Finger Eleven shots I wish I did.  All I remember is they were the heaviest band there that day by far and I, being a metalhead from way back, respect heavy!  These guys are GOOD heavy too.  Very heavy, very tight, and so much action going on you wonder how they can even HOLD their instruments let alone PLAY them! I didn't know it then but I was witnessing one of my future favorite bands.  Now, every time they come to Guelph, I find their road manager, and he throws me a photo pass out of the kindness of his heart. This is rare in music today.  Finding a road manager that gives a shit about something other than his immediate tasks at hand.  He's a really good shit and probably the best fucking sound man in the business today.  Anyway... he probably gave me the pass with the thought in the back of his head of "these guys are fucking hard to shoot buddy... good luck".  They play in very low light most of the time with lots of reds and blues going on and off at a pretty quick pace.  Red and blue lights SUCK for photos but definitely look cool to the eye.  As I mentioned before they are constantly moving too.  Not just walking around the stage or pulling boyband moves, I mean fuckin moving.

The bass player, Sean, pretty well stays rooted in place holding down the fort to keep them bottomed out while the two guitarists James Black and Rick Jackett buzz around him like a couple of hornets on acid.  Of course drummer Rich Beddoe is kinda glued in place too but he's got so many cool little moves while he's playing that he might as well join the hornets.  Scott Anderson, lead singer, is a little more deliberate with his movement possibly more interested in keeping his vocal dead on.  He clearly enjoys what he's doing every night.  The smile just keeps creeping back to his face as if he can't believe we LIKE his band.  He seems amazed at the outpour of love from his fans even though he's been doing this for years. The whole band still gets those moments.  

 They've got a dedicated crew and like I mentioned before, a soundman from hell (or heaven... wherever the best sound comes from...) so they consistently pull off great sounding and visually stunning shows night after night.  If you don't have the Greyest of Blue Skies or Finger Eleven III in your CD collection then you are a FUCKING LOSER.  Yes YOU.  GO.  NOW.  Buy a fucking CD!!!!  Get a ticket and travel to the ends of the earth if you have to.  See them LIVE.  Experience Finger Eleven, the best heavy band Canada has to offer.

Happy fuckin birthday to me.  Finger Eleven with a photo pass again.  So nice.  Figured I got enough shots of Scott the first time around so I decided to make an effort to get the guys that were in the dark or flipping around so much I couldn't possibly focus long enough to get a clear shot.  Another great show this was.  As I had expected, these guys were only going to grow on me in a big way.  Of course by this time, I had played out Greyest of Blue Skies to the point where I knew every word of every song and didn't even NEED to play it anymore to hear it.  

I just had to hit repeat in my mind.  It's an old Jedi mind trick.  You'll learn it one day.  This time, they had a new album to support and it was sounding deadly.  So many times you are hooked on some album and guys go and fuck it up by following it up with SHIT.  Not these guys.  Consistently fucking good.  So I got a few good shots, met the guys afterwards and went home thinking that I couldn't wait to see these fuckers again.  I can only expect them to get BETTER.

Greyest of Blue Skies, or whatever they called it, Tour.  Awesome album.  I drank lotsa beer and got the CD which spun endlessly in my home AND car stereos.  This was the 2nd time I saw these guys live, the first being way back in '97 during the Summersault '97 show which featured Our Lady Peace, I Mother Earth and Tea Party.  I was totally blown away by their great sound, professionalism and ability to write solid ass tunes like First Time and Drag You Down.  The lights weren't the best so I didn't exactly get the greatest shots on earth.  When they did light it up, I shot like a motherfucker and ended up with a few gems... very few. 

I knew from this show that I was gonna be a lifelong fan unless Scott beats me up or makes fun of me on stage.  The energy these guys put out during their shows is incredible.  You end up filling up on it and then exploding, spewing it back at the band. They just feed off the audience spew making them more and more volatile til the show comes to an orgasmic explosion of audience and band spew which is later cleaned up by the poor sanitary engineers after the venue is emptied.  You really wouldn't know what the fuck I'm talking about until you've actually attended a spewfest like this.