Kill Hannah is a Chicago staple. They’ve been around forever, and have played with countless Chicago bands in countless Chicago venues. Their hit single “Kennedy” was played on the radio nearly non-stop when it first came out. It would be hard to find a Chicago music person who hasn’t seen Kill Hannah play at least once, and nearly impossible to find someone who hasn’t heard of them.
With that said, I was really disappointed in Kill Hannah’s set. I haven’t seen KH perform in over five years, back when they were still riding high from “Kennedy.” Back then, they were a high energy, breaking edge band. This time around, they had a little less energy, and just seemed tired. Although, they’ve been around since 1994, so I guess they have a excuse. The bright side? “Kennedy” is still a great song, and it was nice to hear it live again, even after all this time.
Fun Kill Hannah fact: “Kill Hannah was formed by singer-songwriter Mat Devine in 1994. The band is named after Devine’s ex-girlfriend. At the time, Devine was singing and playing guitar in a band called In a Jar UK. After the fallout with Hannah, Devine printed up stickers to place on In a Jar UK 7″ records bearing the name “Kill Hannah.” (from Wikipedia)
Shooting Notes
This was one of the darkest, least photo-friendly shows I’ve shot in a while. The light falling on the performers was primarily red, and it was so dim it was barely there and the smoke, which I generally am a fan of, made focusing difficult. Also, I’m currently sick, so instead of getting to the venue at doors, getting a prime spot, and standing around for four hours like I would normally do, I opted to show up later and shoot from the side, which also increased the difficulty of the shoot.
I shot the majority of the set at 6400ISO, f/2.8, between 1/80-1/125, and I still had to push most of the images a stop or so in post. Since I was shooting from the side, I also shot with the 70-200mm f/2.8L IS for much of the set, which I haven’t used for a while (I forgot how heavy it is!). Along with that, I used the 24-70mm for a few of the wider shots.
If I was feeling better (and thus more daring), I might have experimented with off-camera flash set up on the edges of the stage for this one, but I’m not sure how that would have worked with the copious amounts of smoke/fog.
