Photographing the Eagles Concert
My experiencing photographing one of the most well-known bands in the world.
I’m sitting in a conference room in the basement of a stadium with one of the greatest bands of all time warming up one floor above me.
Upon getting past the security at the arena, I was picked up in the lobby by a man who works for the building. A mediator between the PR contacts and the journalists, because the Eagles publicist doesn’t really have time to give instructions to a 21-year old girl photographing their concert. This man, Eric, took me into the back offices of the arena, showed me to a conference room and said,
“Stay in here until I come back to get you in 30 minutes.”
There was no further instruction. So here I sit.
Ever since I graduated, and a couple months before that, I’ve been working for the local city newspaper. Writing and photographing about three stories a week working with the arts & entertainment section. There are quite a few other freelance photographers and writers, but none of them do both, like me, and none of them can be paid as little as me, as a 21-year-old.
Two days ago I got a call asking if I could photograph the Eagles concert. I knew the Eagles were popular, but I thought of them more as an indie rock band. An acquired taste, possibly. I heard about them for the first time in Taylor Swift’s song “Gold Rush” when she says, “with your Eagles t-shirt hanging from the door.” Later, it turned out she was talking about the football Philadelphia Eagles, not the band. All that to say, I wasn’t the biggest fan. I know “Hotel California”!
My mom got very excited though, her sister was a big fan of the Eagles and would always have it playing from the radio (or however you listened to music back then) in her room to be heard all the way down the hall.
I have photographed at a lot of concerts in my day, but never in an arena this big and never at one with such strict bureaucracy. The largest has probably been at Webster Hall in NYC or venues around that size. Where you shoot the first three songs from the photo pit then float around for the rest of the concert shooting from farther away or just enjoying that you got into a concert for free. Or the even smaller concerts in Brooklyn where I don’t even need a photo pass, just have to arrive early enough to be able to stand in the front row and the patience to not go crazy when there are no real lights pointing towards the stage making it look like I took the pictures on a grainy film camera but the musicians are so not used to being photographed that they all perform staring straight at your lens. I do not believe, since I am subjected to sitting in this conference room, that this concert will be anywhere near the same style.
Eric was very nice when he walked me from the lobby to this room, nicer than I thought he would be. Though I’m not sure why I didn’t think he would be nice. The things he said did frighten me in the slightest, though. Like that I absolutely could not take any videos under any circumstances and that a few nights prior, the band had threatened to end the show after the first two songs because one of the photographers had pulled out their phone and started recording. He told me that the PR contact let him know that the lighting was pretty bad, so they were letting photographers have the first four songs instead of three to compensate. There was also the fact of sticking me in this room and telling me he would retrieve me later that was somewhat unsettling. But here I am, sitting in this room waiting to be retrieved. It is almost 7:30, which is when the opener, Steely Dan, comes on so I expect to be retrieved soon.
—
I think I love Steely Dan. He had a lot of energy (which honestly I did not expect, given I thought he was old) and knew how to command a crowd even though he was sitting down at a piano the entire time.
I’m back in my conference room again though, as I was only allowed the first three songs of his set as well before being sent back down into the depths of the office. Apparently this is normal for larger bands, they don’t let press stick around to just watch the concerts after they’re done working. I am okay with that though, since now I have all of the pictures I took from the opener edited already and I can turn them in quicker after the concert. Since his set is an hour long, I have to wait in this room for 45 minutes, but I already spent 30 of those minutes editing pictures and flagging the best ones.
We are required to shoot from the sound board which is about 100 yards back from the stage. They aren’t allowed photographers in the close photo pit right in front of the stage for the entire tour. I’ve been using my 70-200mm, that I originally used for soccer, for the close up shots and a 24-70 for a few shots of the entire stage. While the Eagles security told us we had to stay right at the sound booth, Eric said that we could float around the floor as long as we acted dumb if we got caught. I took that very seriously, as it was my aspiration as a young child to be a spy. Plus I had an advantage, since I am smaller therefore I get in people’s way less and also, no security guard expects a little girl to be a photographer for an event like this, they all just thought I was lost looking for a parent. My fellow photographer got caught right away though, so Eric told me to just follow the rules.
There is just one other photographer who got clearance to shoot this concert, which admittedly makes me feel very important. He is the official venue photographer and does all the shows here. While we were hanging around the sound board waiting for Steely Dan to come on, Eric turned to me and said,
“Since you probably don’t know this, and you shouldn’t know this, since you’re young and these guys are old, there are a lot of people on stage with Steely Dan, but the only one actually part of the band is the one singing.”
When the 20 different people walked on stage to perform, it was very helpful to have that information.
—
I’m back at home, my photographs are turned in, and I’m eating ice cream out of the carton on the floor of my apartment.
The Eagles were very mellow, which was an interesting juxtaposition to the man in the audience next to me yelling, “Rock on geriatrics!” in between each song.
It was also quite funny as I was working, since I had been warned that the lighting was very bad. As I told my dad on the phone as I drove home from downtown,
“Whoever thought that lighting was bad needs to get back to their roots. That lighting was perfect, it has been too long since these people tried to photograph a concert at a bar with no lighting.”
Needless to say I didn’t have to do a lot of editing, since the spotlights were perfect on all five of the Eagles on stage. To be honest, I’m not exactly sure who the actual people were on stage and how many of them are the original Eagles or add-ons. In my prior research, the only name I recognized was Vince Gill, but it turns out he wasn’t ever really an Eagle, just someone they brought on. Apparently there were a few other additional members who were added over the years, and a couple others who have passed away. Whoever those five guys were on stage, they rocked those geriatrics hard!
Yours truly,
Calihan
P.S. Apologies for the photography post without actually posting the photos, but they can only be published on the newspaper website. Another thing that doesn’t happen when you photograph in bars!