First, imagine it’s 1940-whatever and you’re hearing Chet Atkins when he first showed up in Nashville.
Then imagine it’s 1980-something and you’re hearing Harry Connick, Jr. for the first time.
Now imagine that you’re hearing BOTH of these amazing talents early in their careers in the same venue, on the same night, and even playing a couple of tunes together.
That’s what it was like this evening as stellar young “Chet-style” guitarist Jonathan Brown and torch singer/keyboardist Andrew Walesch opened the “New Artists” night at The Basement in Nashville.
Here are some photos from tonight’s show. Sorry, no recorded music to go with it yet (yeah, I know, sorta defeats the purpose…)
A few notes on these photos: I borrowed a couple of high-end lenses to use on my Olympus OM-D for this shoot – the Panasonic 12-35 f/2.8 and the Panasonic 37-100 f/2.8. The latter is the equivalent of the Nikon 70-200 f/2.8 that I have been using in situations like this (with a Nikon D300s) for the past two years. The difference is the OM-D/Panasonic f2.8 combination weighs in at a fraction of the Nikon assembly — which rig is convenient combination camera and anvil.
But I have to say, on first glance, that I’m not altogether thrilled with the results I got from this rig.
Going in, I was a bit concerned about the likely responsiveness of the OM-D in this situation, compared to the Nikon. It took a little getting used to the different form factor, but once I did I was pleased to see that the shutter lag and auto-focus were not a problem.
Still, once I got the files loaded into Lightroom, I have to say they just don’t compare to the results I get from the Nikon rig. Compared to what I get from the Nikon, these files were soft and noisy. In club/concert settings I usually have to push the ISO to 3200; These days, between the advanced sensors and a little bit of noise reduction in Lightroom, that’s not an issue. And while these images are entirely useable in the format you see them in here, I don’t think they would hold up if I tried to make decent sized prints of them.
I’m going to shoot another show Wednesday night; this time I’m going to bring the Nikon, too – so that I’ll be able to see exactly how the two setups compare.
Stay tuned…