Traces Of The Real

This is Les Savy Fav playing on the first day of ATP Nightmare Before Xmas in December 2011. They played twice, kicking things off in the smaller Reds venue late afternoon, and then closing the night on the main stage at 1 in the morning or so. This photo was from the earlier set and is, I think, an exposure of about 4 minutes, taken during whatever song in which singer Tim Harrington was playing a keyboard for.

I love Les Savy Fav and even though have played Dublin several times over the years I had never seen them before. It’s easy to get distracted by Harrington’s onstage antics and forget what a great band they are. At different points in the set he was diving into the crowd, stripping off, hanging out of the metal girder above the stage, dragging a fan up and enacting a bizarre double act that ended with both of them jumping into the audience, and all sorts of other carry-on like that. It’s definitely more entertaining than someone rooted to a microphone and staring at the ground between verses, but if it wasn’t for the fact that they have such great songs it would become annoying fairly quickly.  The late night set was even better – with costumes, balloons, and the band in full-on party mode.

By the way, I have no idea what that white spike on the lower left side of the photograph is. It could have been someone carrying a phone or some other kind of light. If you look closely you’ll also see tons of dust spots on the image. I could spend hours in Lightroom getting rid of them but what the hell, I think it kind of suits the picture. It was a messy afternoon and an even messier night. Looking forward to seeing them again some time.