There are nights when I feel like my job is a job, and the are others were I feel so blessed to do what I do and I feel like my job is the funnest damn thing in the world. Last night was the later. Steve Aoki was on stage at Montreal’s Metropolis for his Aokify America Tour. Ok, granted, we are in Canada, but I guess adding North in that America would be too much.
So as I was saying… this show was one big party. I know of the artist, heard some songs, but had no idea what to expect from his show. I saw the prior 2 acts – Waka Flocka Flame (who I am convinced took his stage name from Fozzy the bear in The Muppets) and Borgore – and was sure that it was going to be one of those “this feels like a job” night. Sure, Borgore had dancers with stripper poles dancing on stage, but only so much you can do when taking photos. And sure, Waka invited a fan on stage to pop open a bottle of champagne and spray the crowd and I turned around and was covered in champagne
And then Aoki came on stage. And the place went nuuuuuuts! Right at the first stop, the place got covered, and I mean covered in confetti. The canons were refilled and shot out again a few songs later.. .and again… and again. Photographers were given the full set to shoot. In the pit for as long as the bouncers considered it safe (which ended up being 3-4 songs… they all kinda sound the same to me so hard to tell haha), but we could shoot from the venue for the rest of the time.
After a few songs, the dark columns on the side of his setup became giant robots. Cool. And then the robots danced. And then they sprayed the crowd with smoke. I couldn’t even see my camera anymore. Was pretty surreal.
Robots went away and photographers were kicked out. I went around the venue some to find a new spot. It was so humid inside on the balcony that my lens kept fogging up. So I made my way to the closed off boxseat right beside the stage, said hey to it’s occupants and decided to camp there for a while.
The shot below shows how my lens fogged up.. .the effect around is not processing, it’s humidity!
See… every artist has a gimmick. One of Aoki’s is throwing cakes into the audience members faces. So I wanted to stick around for a few cake flings as I noticed 6-7 boxes of cake in the back of the stage. I also heard that he brought out a rubber boat and had people boatsurfing. Cool cool. I’ll see if I last. While I didn’t stay for the boat, it was 11:30 when I left and I still needed to get home and work images, I did manage to catch Aoki going to the opposite balcony box from me and jumping into the crowd that is holding up an inflatable mattress. Which he kinda hit on the side and then fell into the crowd. haha.
A pretty epic shoot I must say, one of the funnest in a long time.
I had along my little fuji x100s and made some shots with that, curious to see how they come out. If you want to check those shots out and a little write up, click HERE. And for some amazing shots that I’m not posting here, you can check out my media set at Sorstu.ca. I also have photos of Waka up there too.
And as I always say, the fans are the ones that make the show. These fans were just insane throughout, specially the ones who braved the front and got smashed and squished against the barrier over and over.
