"Rock The Fox" Music Festival.

Since shutting down CHICAGO's ROCK some years ago and concentrating on other corporate / commercial type of photography, I haven't been shooting as many bands as I used to in years past. Live music photography is still one of my most favorite activities to photograph. Fortunately for me, I still have active clients & friends within the industry, that from time to time either hire me to photograph/film their shows or simply allow me to just come out & shoot for myself while enjoying a good live rock show.  

The latter of those two scenarios took place last weekend at a local event dubbed the "Rock The Fox Music Fest" which was held in Carpentersville, IL.
Now, this is not a music or show review. I'm simply writing some thoughts and sharing some of the images I created on those 2 nights I attended the festival. The 1st artist I wanted to see was my friend Danny Baron, a local blues guitarist/vocalist whom I have known and worked with for about 10 years now.

​Danny is one of those guys that is not only talented at what he does, but he is a heck-of-a-lot of fun to watch, and/or in my case, to photograph.  His facial gestures which range from 'confusion' to 'I-ate-something-bad' to almost 'orgasmic' -to name a few-, really take his performance and the experience of watching him perform to a whole other level. From a media guy's perspective, he's nothing short of a joy to work with. 

​The rest of the band did a fine job as usual. They're not the most theatrical of guys but they're solid musicians and their performance was on-point. There was a new element to that equation in the form of a sax player whom I did not get to meet, but I did enjoy his performance and also watching the play-off between him and Danny on various songs. That was actually pretty cool.

All in all, it was a great performance by the band as a whole and I managed to make some good photographs of my friend Danny.

Kashmir was the 2nd band to hit the stage on that evening. By then, nightfall had set in and the stage lights began to play a more prominent role in the visuals of the show.

Kashmir is a Led Zeppelin tribute act that is quite popular in the area. I photographed them for the 1st time about 10 years ago & then once again this past winter at a local club. I love the visuals of their show as they take a lot of pride in re-creating the look (and sounds) of 1970s Led Zeppelin.

The role of Jimmy Page (guitarist) is played by a fella named Frank. It is rather obvious by looking at him and watching him perform, of how much work and effort he has put into making himself not just a copycat of the original artist, but rather a tribute to the man himself, in the way he looks and on his on-stage sound. He was the one I was most interested in seeing that night.

The visuals and the music were very cool. They played many of the classic "hits" which the audience was loving. The energy between band & crowd was exhilarating at times which in turn made for wonderful photographs.

It turned out to be a great end to a day filled with music. I was pretty happy with the results I got straight out of the camera & I got to listen to great classic songs while I composed images.

The following day, I went to see my friend Mike and a new band he has been playing with for a while now. The band was none other than Mr. Capone's Bootlegger Band. 

The band is led by Pat Capone, a local rock radio personality & a person that by all accounts appears to be a really cool dude. They play classic "rebel" rock or as they call it, "High Energy, Righteous Rock and Roll". My friend Mike, is their bass player.

Even though the venue was the same as with the previous bands I had photographed there the night before, the lighting was different. It was odd. Maybe it was a different tech's personal style, ...I don't know. It was odd and I needed to adjust my thinking and my approach to shooting this if I wanted anything of quality to come out of it. This was for me and I didn't have to compromise or please someone else so I decided to work it just as it was and make lemonade out of the lemons I had just been given.

The band looked and sounded phenomenal. I for one, don't particularly like listening to the same songs we're all sick of hearing, over and over wherever I go. That was not the case here as their setlist included a lot of songs I had not heard in a very long time & if I'm not mistaken, I think there were a couple of original tunes included as well. 

I didn't really need a ton of frames shot. I never really do as my focus tends to be more on quality versus quantity, so as I got accustomed to the lighting situation, I noticed brief, sporadic moments of "light", so while I watched & enjoyed the show, I waited for those "light" moments to try and capture a cool performance memory with good color.

I really enjoyed watching Pat, Mike and the rest of the Bootleggers. Man, they rocked that crowd to oblivion!  ...and, I think I ended up with some very cool images out of all 3 bands I photographed. It will be tough to decide which ones will make my Wall of Fame at home. Ha!

Thank you for reading. Enjoy the images and check out these bands if you're ever in the area and have an opportunity to do so.
Until next time!
​-Mario