Robben Ford Discussion

[ellsworth]

Hi daved, Just got my tickets for robben and larry at the jazz cafe (thank god not the mean fiddler)
I'm a keen amateur photographer and I thought it would be good to get some photos of robben and larry in action!I was wondering if there was any chance of getting permission to take photos, would the band be ok about it? I wont be using flash.
(Thanks for the great piece of insider info on Gregg Allman's euro tour, got my tickets!)
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the older I get the better I was

[roadwarriorfortheblues]

Some venues are beginning to ban cell phones and cameras. The PGA tour has banned them. House of Blues/Orlando has banned cell phones and cameras (at the artists' request ... no cell phones or cameras will be allowed at the Britney Spears' show in Orlando this weekend ) ... it's only a matter of time.
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Travelling by train of thought

[JohnnyZ]

re: banning cell phones

I witnessed the lamest use of cell phones at a U2 concert about a year and a half ago. During a certain song, Bono asked the audience to flip or turn on their phones so they illuminate, and hold them up in the air. I took this as the new techno way to show (forced) appreciation as opposed to the "old" way, which was to light matches or lighters during/after incredible and deserved performances. Of course, thousands of young-ins obliged with their phones. But, for me, not being a fan of cell phones anyway except for emergency use, I could've done without the lame visual. Very lame. Just another reason to ban cell phones from shows...

BTW, for me, the worst offense of cell phone use during a show is just plain talking. I've seen people talk through a whole show. WTF! Why even be there? Also, don't dare be near me during a show and talk on a cell cause you ain't gonna be talkin' for long!!!

End of rant...

AntiCellPhoneJohnnyZ

[ellsworth]

calm down!! I'm talking about using a proper camera not some stupid phone/camera.
I also hate talkers at gigs, was over in NYC to see the Allman Brothers Band at the Beacon and I was amazed at some people who talked throughout the concert
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the older I get the better I was

[Millibobs]

An old singer of ours once poked his mike, on the end of its stand, into the midst-of a group of girls who had been chattering incessantly throughout the (packed) gig. The language was pretty spectacular and was concerned with the oral requirements of one of their boyfriends - the sound engineer quickly got the joke and we managed a few seconds of their conversation through the house PA before the band and the audience broke down in hysteria. Meanwhile, the girls just thought the song had finished and started clapping - they were the only ones applauding and couldn't understand why everyone else was crying with laughter.

This stunt paid off extremely well for me as I had been relegated to the floor for lack of stage room and later on in the gig, a couple of the chattering ladies kindly lifted their tops during 'La Grange' and my solo sort of wandered off key for a while. There wasn't a happy ending as my wife was also in the audience with her sister so I was monitored extremely closely after that.

I recommend the use of 'covert miking' wherever possible, even though it probably breaks numerous privacy laws.

Another singer of ours used to just stop the song if he'd had enough, look directly at the offending chatters and say, 'when you've finished?'. This would then be followed by some polite applause, a suitable response from the talkers and occasionally, a minor brawl!

[nineacres]

I remember a gig I did as one half of a blues duo about three years ago in a wine bar in the North Yorkshire town of Northallerton. At some point during the first set a whole bunch of "girlies'-night-outers" came in. You know the type - all boobs and butts ... Must have been about 15 of them. Well, they all sat down right in front of us and they all just yapped, and yapped, and yapped. At one point during a song I started playing randon notes - you know - plinky-plonky, plink-plonky, plinky plonky. I did this for about a minute - and not one of them noticed what was going on. Totally oblivious. About 30 minutes later they all left, none the wiser.
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"Creativeness often consists of merely turning up what is already there. Did you know that right and left shoes were only thought up a little more than a century ago?" - Bernice Fitz-Gibbon 1894-1982

[Daved]

I won't be there for the Larry/Robben shows. That is pretty well covered by Larry's crew, so I just ship off Robben's necessary gear and let them take care of him.

So, I am not sure what the photograph policy is in the LC camp.

As for Robben, he still detests flash and photographers who stand in front of him and fire off photo after photo after photo ("How many pictures do you NEED?!?").

He will make it very obvious that photographers are annoying him and even address them from the stage if they can't seem to get the hint. (In Oslo last week his on stage statement to persistant camera welders was, "I think you've taken enough photos and can stop now. You can't see music!").

Robben is NOT about how he looks onstage or the awesomness of his visual presentation. He is NOT David Bowie or Pink Floyd.. awash in tons of lights, staging, and choreography.
He is ALL about the music and ANY photo taken of a RF show is going to look basically like any other photo ever taken at a Robben Ford concert...
but NONE of those photographs will indicate in any way the sound quality of the music Robben plays... which IS what Robben is all about.
So, tons of brilliantly executed photographs are going to produce very little that has not already been documented before time and time again.
And, will most certainly produce or recreate virtually NOTHING of the music... which is, after all, the reason he is there in the first place.

He used to allow flashless photos, but it has gotten so bad these days and photographers, tapers, videoers have gotten so blatant in their ignoring his wishes and requests that he has made it a general 'blanket' policy just to ban ALL recording media of any kind.

His thought is, "it's not my fault that some in the audience disrespect my wishes, don't care that they are distracting me and thereby reducing the quality of the performance, and are ruining it for everyone else at the show by forcing me to punish everyone in attempt to slow down the offending few."

Some folks get upset at Robben when he goes to a corner and turns his back to the offending photographer (and thus, unfortunately, also to the rest of the audience). It seems to me the irritated audience members who are actually there for the music and show should be less upset at Robben and focus their anger more on that photographer in the front row or next to them who obviously is NOT there for the music and, obviously, does NOT care if the audience gets great music and performances, as long as he gets his 5 rolls of high quality photos.

If audience members helped police the offending audience situations rather then venting their disappointment and wrath on the performer, perhaps the majority of the audience (who are there to enjoy the show rather than to document it) would not have to suffer because of the few who could care less about the quality of the performance and the musical artistry being exhibited or the dollars spent by the rest of the concert goers who paid their money to see and hear a great show rather than watch distracted performers stumble and misstep or have to, themselves, put up with media recorders obstructing their own show enjoyment.

A fan who wants to take 1 or 2 quick non flash photos for their scrapbooks at home, by which to remember their evening of fantastic, high quality entertainment should not be a problem. However, the few papparazi-wanna-be's are ruining it for the true fan and music admirer.

Even the industry standard for officially sanctioned and authorized media photographers (newspapers, magazines, etc.) is, and always has been, to allow non flash photography for the first 2-3 songs and then they are required to put away their equipment and enjoy the show with everyone else.

Most performers (and PROFESSIONAL photographers) know, accept, and approve of this practice.
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B C-ing U!
( }:-Daved
"This boy's diseased with rhythm!" -Bing Crosby (Road To Rio, '49)

[Daved]

BTW, Ellsworth...

You're welcome. Hope you enjoy the GA&F show.

Cheers!
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B C-ing U!
( }:-Daved
"This boy's diseased with rhythm!" -Bing Crosby (Road To Rio, '49)

[ellsworth]

Cheers Daved, Im not a paparazzi photographer. I do a bit of photography for a food website. It would only be a couple of snaps as a memento of the evening.Having said that I'm not all that sure I'll take a camera as I know Robben doesn't like it!
Its just another way to remember a great nights music!

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the older I get the better I was

[Millibobs]

I can close my eyes and 'see' every great gig I ever attended - mementoes are good but memories are great!

I'm presently looking at the picture at the top left of this page and I can 'hear' Robben playing.

There are some fantastic open air concert shots around here also which were obviously taken at a distance and I guess as a result, the photography process wouldn't have bothered Robben too much. Consequently, I have access to pretty much all the Robben pictures I'll ever need, except for the ones I'll be taking when he comes around for dinner!

[BlueRunner]

And meanwhile, back to JohnnyZ and the cell phone thing. What IS it about cell phones? By coincidence, our local paper's run of "Annie's Mailbag" today (the old Anne Landers column, now run by members of her staff) featured a letter from a parent who was upset with other parents who spent the entirety of a school choral concert yakking on cell phones. At a SECOND GRADE choral concert. ("Oh yes, Daddy really does love you, sweetie, but these folks on the other end of my cell phone are more important to me than you are." What a fabulous way to raise children.)

I think the problem is one of living in the moment, and living a focused life. It's that nagging worry that if you're doing one thing, e.g., enjoying a concert, you really should be doing something else. Something more important. So you try to do both and do a lousy job at each. The mindful person understands that when he or she is at a concert performance, the most important thing is to be in the moment with that concert. To be the best listener you can be, even though it's just for yourself. I know this sounds like a bunch of psycho #^$*, but my now-grown daughters still remind me of a visit years ago with a friend who became a monk. He talked about being mindful of whatever you were doing at that moment, and emphasized that when it was his shift to clean the toilets, he made it a point to focus on nothing but doing the best possible toilet cleaning job of any monk in the abbey. I'm convinced that visit is one of the reasons my daughters have been so successful in life.

Now, mind you, this has nothing to do with people who talk loud in dives, i.e., places where the band expects you to yak. A good example is Patricks II in San Diego, where it's all dance floor crowded up against the bandstand, and half of the yelling that's going on is going on between the dancers and the musicians. Another example is a cute little tapas and martini bar near here, where a friend of mind sings once a month. People talk over her all night, but when I once asked if it it bothered her, she said, "Absolutely not ... the romantic standards that I sing are INTENDED to produce just the sort of sweet googly-eyed conversations all of these couples are having as they gaze into each other's eyes over the little candles on the tables." So now when my wife and I go there we don't feel guilty about having sweet, googly-eyed ... OK you get the picture.

And speaking of pictures: I don't get the photo thing, either. Sit down in front and groove to the music. If you want a picture, take one of Robben's CD covers and make a blow-up in the copy machine at work. (No insult intended, ellsworth, as you can tell by your posts that you're one of those polite fans that Robben wouldn't mind. And have a great time at the show!)
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- BlueRunner

[frank0936]

I agree with you BR. None of these posts would be happening, though, if people stopped to think of others. I know that sounds like something from "Annie's Mailbag" - but it's true. When you talk on a cellphone in an inappropriate place or time, or you talk at a performance, or take pictures or video when requested not to, you're letting everyone know that you don't have any consideration for what they want. We've gotten to be so into what we want for ourselves that we don't think about what we are doing to the people around us. It's bad manners. It's rude. It's selfish (my mother would never believe that I wrote this!). What ever you want to call it - it's just wrong. I don't want to eat my dinner while listening to your cellphone conversation. I don't want to have to try to hear a concert over you shouting to your neighbor. I don't want to have to stand up at a concert because you are in front of me and won't sit down. Sure, stand up and applaud when it's appropriate - but then think of the people behind you and sit back down. Okay, end of rant. I'm preaching to the choir here anyway. The people who need to read this aren't here!
Frank

[JohnnyZ]

I bet that collectively, we could write one of those dummies series books- "Concert Etiquette For Dummies" brought to you by the enlightened folks from the Robben Ford Online Discussion Network! Make it mandatory law to show a 2-minute clip of essential do's and don'ts from our book prior to every show. Then, have the Sisters of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad patrol for offenders, ready to whack them across the knuckles with a ruler at any infraction!

[telefunk1]

JZ - good idea in theory, but consider how well the cell phone warnings work in the cinema before the show starts ("those are obviously for other people, not me!"). Took my daughter and friend to see Spiderman 3 the other day and during the show there was this blinding light from a few rows in front of me. Some jerk had his cell phone out and was texting - it was quiet, yes, but the light from his cell was really annoying!

Totally agree with Blue - get into the moment and enjoy it!

[Millibobs]

On a slightly related subject (and then it's back to the blues!) I just travelled for two hours north from London and was surrounded by various conversations which were taking place on cellphones. The saddest was the guy behind and somewhere to the right who had been bumped in a job selection process and whilst he was telling his correspondent that he was okay about it, the entire carriage knew he was in pieces. In front and to my left a Human Resource manager ( I know this because she included the title in every sentence she used) was explaining to a senior colleague why one of her team had just quit. She mentioned the person by name, ran of a few issues of a most personal nature and then announced that she was best rid of her anyway. There was an unspoken debate raging along the carriage as to who would be first to throw her off the train.

I t is unlikely that either person is familiar with Robben although at times like these it would be nice to be able to pass along the car, handing out complimentary copies of his most uplifting tunes and saying, 'this won't eradicate your troubles or make you a better person, but it will ease your troubled mind, and those of your friends'.

Now, back to my blues scales............