The Fueled By Ramen band, The Hush Sound, is a well-established band in Chicago, but I continually missed their shows for one reason or another. As someone who is out at local shows quite regularly, I can’t believe I didn’t run into a show before now. Yet, I finally got a chance to see what all the hype was about when they played the Metro on December 19th.
Honestly, I expecting more from them. They weren’t bad, but they weren’t anything special. At times, keyboardist/singer Greta Salpeter’s vocals seemed a little off key, and guitarist/singer Bob Morris seemed a little lackluster. Chris Faller (bass/vocals) and Darren Wilson (drums) were fine, but as a whole, I think the band could have stepped it up a notch.
On a positive note, the old school Christmas lights on Greta’s keyboard were very festive and added a nice ambience to the show, especially when the lights were dim.
Shooting Notes
This was the first show that I used my brand spankin’ new 5D Mark II on… and it is fantastic. I will do a full write-up on the camera soon, but ultimately, I feel comfortable going all the way up to 6400ISO on it. This allowed me to shoot at faster shutter speeds (1/200 for most of the show), and also negated the need to push the photo in post at all – even in dark conditions. Also, despite Canon stating that they kept the same auto-focus system as the previous 5D, it seemed as though the AF was slightly better on the 5D Mk II.
Hush Sound’s set was pretty dark, with more backlighting than frontlighting, and quite a bit of red and green washes (getting in that Christmas spirit!). However, the lighting was the only tricky part of the shoot. Greta stayed parked at her keyboard the entire time, and the rest of band also stayed regulated to their sections of the stage and didn’t incite any fast movement.
