Animal Collective + Coheed and Cambria played Boston and I had a weird night – 2/22

animalcollective-1Ok, these photos are ancient by news standards at this point, because I have no time to blog lately, but I still wanted to document my most incongruous double-booking of the year in (double) gallery format. 

The Globe sent me to cover both prog-rock titans Coheed and Cambria and indie-psychedlia darlings Animal Collective on the same night in late February. I had failed to line up press access or secure tickets for Animal Collective’s relatively tiny gig at the Royale (they sold out the more-than-double-sized House of Blues last tour), so that assignment was actually a last-minute blessing. The band’s exploration of the majority of their new record Painting With and a selection of mostly moody back catalog deep cuts wasn’t quite the euphoric experience of seeing them at Washington DC’s 9:30 Club in 2013, but the set was solid. The live presentation of “Floridada” confirmed its banger status, insofar as Animal Collective can have “bangers.”

Shooting the band was a particular challenge this tour, since their Kraftwerk-in-Candyland podium and projections setup offered inconsistent light and plenty of obstructions, but with some creative balcony angling I was pretty happy with the results. With the ~30 minute window between shooting Coheed and getting across town to catch the beginning of AC’s set, a spot to shoot anywhere near the stage was pretty much impossible, but in this case it wouldn’t have done much good anyway.

Coheed presented their own challenges, with dim red front lighting and unpredictable blasts of blinding white backlight dominating the single (albeit lengthy) song we were allowed to shoot. I’ve had far worse House of Blues lighting experiences, though (looking at you, Jesus and Mary Chain), so I’ll take it. I was also just grateful that the crowd-surfer who landed on my back and forced my face into the edge of the stage (narrowly) avoided taking me out of commission for the night. Photos from both shows below.

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