Brother Firetribe @ Kellari 9.1.2009

Even though the pictures from Amorphis’ gig had been up in our gallery for ages, I finally got around to selecting and editing the best shots of Brother Firetribe’s last gig.

They are a side project for many of the members – just a way to have fun – that play good old 80s style hard rock. I know many die-hard metalheads who tried to hate them, but failed. But then again, what do you expect when the musicians are skilled and the music is mostly upbeat hard rock. It does make you smile.

Musically the gig was very much what you’d expect. Good, fast moving music and an enthusiastic crowd. When compared to the other metal acts we’ve seen in Kellari the audience was much more colorful (the black uniform of metalheads were more to the back). The band seemed to enjoy themselves and really worked up a sweat (as can be seen in some of the pictures).

The gig was the first one we went to see in Kellari (which celebrated it’s first anniversary at the time), so the venue was unknown. What little I could tell from their website was that they don’t have all that much lighting on the house but at least they don’t prevent photography in any way.

The bang lighting didn’t make things any easier. The light was mostly from the back and generally quite red. Liberal use of the smoke machine meant that I didn’t get any decent shots of the drummer.

The venue doesn’t have a separate area between the stage and audience for photographers so getting a good spot for photography means getting there early and staying where you are. Luckily I’m not small, so keeping my spot and staying steady in the pit isn’t an impossible task.

Every time I’ve seen Nighwish play live I’ve enjoyed how Emppu Vuorinen interacts with the audience – even from the larger stages that Nightwish play on in Finland. Brother Firetribe’s vocalist Pekka Heino is also great with the audience and I got several good shots of him interacting with them (us).

The full set of pictures can be found in our photo gallery.