THE night of Sunday, December 3 was going to be a busy one for me. I had plans to meet some out-of-town friends for dinner and drinks, rush over to the Sacramento Memorial Auditorium to get my photo pass, whip back across the street to help a friend’s band load in at a small club and then jet back again to get my camera gear ready to shoot some pictures of the almighty Primus.
The fact that I lived a mere stones throw from the venue, coupled with the drinking that would likely follow the Primus show, made it an easy decision to hop on my cruiser (read: bicycle) and ride it down to the fun zone. Some of you may already have noticed, this was a bad decision. We’ll have more on that later.
This was my first foray into the ‘professional’ realm of concert photography. I’ve shot plenty of concerts before, but I’d never taken the path that leads you into the photo pit. Rather than roaming free around the venue shooting this and that like I’m used to, I was quickly relegated to an area left of stage with the other official photographers. I made small talk with them and started prepping my gear.
Since we were near the front of the stage, I snuck a quick peek through the side door and was immediately struck stupid by the size of the crowd. The house lights were still up and it was easy to tell the place was definitely over capacity.
Just then they announced the band would be going on in 10 minutes, and that we had the first three songs to get our shots — oh, and no flashes are allowed. The door opened and the six of us were ushered in and guided in our procession to the photo pit (the photo pit is, of course, the four feet between the front of the stage and the crowd barrier). As I’m walking into the pit and stepping over the support beams of the crowd barrier, I turned and looked up at some of the people in the front row. They were packed in, sweaty, bug-eyed, and generally having a hard time maintaining the devotion that led them to that spot. Wait until the lights drop and the first notes kick in, I thought to myself. Let me say again that these people were all about three feet above me.
By that point, people were already crowd surfing and being dropped into the pit in which we were standing. This led me to notice that there were more security guards in that spot than I’d ever seen at a concert. I would estimate the number at 25+ strong. One of them reminded me that three of the shows on this Primus tour had to be cut short because the crowd had folded the barriers.
Right at that moment, the house lights went down, purple flood lights on the stage came up, and the crowd erupted when the familiar hiss/whistle intro of Damn Blue Collared Tweakers pulsed from stacks of speakers flanking the stage.
I found a spot right in front of Les Claypool, who sported a fashionable pithe hat for the evening, and I lined up my first shots. Things were pretty hectic, yet uneventful, in the pit for the first song. Mostly though I was very impressed with how good they sounded — much more powerful than the Suck On This days when I caught them at the Berkeley Square.
The security guards were playing their best game of Tapper, attempting to run back and forth catching kids as they were about to spill over into the pit. Of course, you can’t win ’em all, and there were the periodic ‘thuds’ of people hitting the ground around me.
Tweakers ended and we barely had time to catch our breath when Les launched into those familiar bass chords of Here Come The Bastards. I made eye contact with him just as the first chorus started, and he uttered “Here they come.”
I didn’t realize this was an actual warning from Les. Shortly thereafter the deluge of people started falling from the sky and landing on top of us. It was totally surreal and wholly impossible to take photos during this song. With one kid on top of me, I heard a loud impact to my right. I turned to see the security guards flash the light on a girl clothed only in her shirt. She’d lost everything else to the swirling mass of people above. They did what they could to cover her up and Rock Med took her under their wings. During this song the entire stage was flooded with harsh red light, which the photogs among you may know is not very conducive to taking photos, since the red light confuses the exposure of the camera.
The next song started, and I’m stoked to hear that it’s Southbound Pacadyrm. The crowd subsided somewhat and I was finally able to lean in and take some true shots. Two of the other photographers decided to make their exit at this point, one of them exclaiming “That’s enough for me” on his way out.
At the end of Pacadyrm, we’re immediately ushered out and told that we can go put our cameras in our cars but that they can’t stay on the premises. No exceptions. Well, as I mentioned earlier, I had ridden my bike to the venue, so my night with Primus was over. I stalled as long as I could to catch a great version of Jerry Was A Racecar Driver and then headed out across the street to catch my friend’s band.
On the way down the steps I miracled a kid who got shut out of the show with my unused ticket. Maybe he left with his pants intact.
Primus 12/03/2006
Memorial Auditorium
Sacramento, CA
Those Damned Blue Collar Tweekers
Here Come the Bastards
Southbound Pachyderm
John the Fisherman
Seas of Cheese
Mr. Krinkle
Spegetti Western
Over the Electric Grapevine
My Name is Mud
Jerry was a Racecar Driver
Harold of the Rocks
Encore:
Is It Luck?
Related audio: Since the 12/3 Monk attended in Sacramento isn’t available yet in the Primus category of etree, feel free to download 11/28 in Eugene, 11/21 in Denver or 11/12 in Boston for more from this tour…
Related video: Check out Primus clips on YouTube
Related link: Read all about Les Claypool’s upcoming New Year’s Eve Bash
3 Responses
nice review, decent pics, i bet it is pretty damn hard to get good shots in that kind of environment. i’ve always wanted to shoot a big show from the photo pit. one of these days.
that is fucking sweet you got to hear “southbound” before you left, though. that’s probably my favorite primus song and i’ve yet to hear them play it live.
this was my first Primus concert it was pretty rad Gogol Bordello was the opener i never heard of them and i probably speled it wrong but they were as good as you would think a Russian punk band could be…
why were people chanting “Primus Sucks” by the way? these people say Primus sucks on all the reviews and i dont know id they are serious or not., why would you pay for the tickets if you dont like them?