While late 2021 marked the return to concerts following the pandemic shutdown, 2022 is when touring really got going. There were still a number of tours cut short or modified due to COVID outbreaks within the tour crew, but for the most part 2022 felt normal again.

For me, 2022 was a year where I checked a few boxes on my photo bucket list, and shot some of the biggest and most important artists I’ve ever had the pleasure to photograph. At the top of this list, undoubtedly, would be Sir Paul McCartney. The man needs no introduction, he is a living legend. It’s incredible that he still tours with the kind of passion that he does. I had the chance to photograph the first of two nights of his Got Back tour in Oakland, CA, and he played a 36-song set list. Thirty six! And as they used to say, the set list was “all killer, no filler”. Paul is the only artist I’ve seen that can get away with using only his own music in the pre-show. I felt very lucky to be one of the photographers covering this tour. His team was unusually accommodating to photographers and made our jobs easy, which only increased my respect for the man. To see my photos from this show, check out RIFF Magazine’s review!

Another highlight was when I had the chance to photograph the legendary Pearl Jam for the first time. I grew up in the grunge era and Pearl Jam was everywhere on the radio during those formative years of my life, making this one a pretty special show for me. It’s amazing to see how the fans have stuck by them over the years, and their new music sounds just as vital as their older material. For this show, I made the grave mistake of leaving a crucial piece of my gear at home - my step stool! For shows of this size, more often than not the photographers are positioned back near the soundboard, which means you’re probably shooting over the heads of the audience. A step stool is essential if you want to have any hope of keeping people’s heads out of your photos, and I didn’t have mine. Instead, I had to get up on my tip-toes and brace myself against the metal barrier, and pray that nobody taller than 6’ would be in my sight-line. For the most part things worked out, though I do wish I could have that show back - with my tallest step stool, of course. My photos can be seen accompanying a review on RIFF Magazine.

In the same vein as Pearl Jam, I also finally got to see (and photograph) The Smashing Pumpkins this year. Heavy nostalgia with that one! The band looked and sounded incredible, though it turned out to be one of the hardest shows I’ve shot in recent memory because we had to shoot from behind the soundboard, and couldn’t use step stools. Somehow, it all worked out though.

The largest tour I shot this year would belong to The Weeknd. Originally set to tour arenas in the summer of 2020, and then postponed and eventually cancelled due to the pandemic, this tour got a post-pandemic upgrade from arenas to stadiums after The Weeknd’s unrelenting success with the hit “Blinding Lights” and a memorable Super Bowl halftime show in 2021. This show took place at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, home of the San Francisco 49ers, and it took every advantage of the upsized venue. Truly one of the biggest productions I’ve seen, it was breathtakingly beautiful to photograph even as it did justice the dark and ominous mood of his music.

It wasn’t all big stadium and arena shows this year, however. I also had the chance to photograph a few old favorites. In the spring I had the chance to catch Lord Huron’s latest tour at the Greek Theater in Berkeley. Their latest album Long Lost is a brilliant concept album centered around the idea of memories lost to “time’s blur”. These guys have a real knack for creating a deep mythology around all of their records, and to promote this record they created an old-timey radio show personality who reminisced about (fabricated) artists on a fake record label whose music and “memorabilia” they hid across Spotify and eBay, respectively. Their shows keep this mythology in the background, letting the music speak for itself, but it’s no less fun to capture visually. I’ll never grow tired of photographing these Michiganders.

Another band I photographed yet again this year was LANY - my fifth time shooting them. I’ve been shooting their shows since they were just getting started opening for most established bands in small clubs, and now they’re headlining some awfully big rooms around the world. What endears me to a band like LANY is that unlike most bands, they allow photographers to shoot their entire show. Shows like this really give me the chance to tell a story with my photography and capture a lot of unique angles and moments that rarely happen in the first three songs. For this show, LANY’s frontman Paul Jason Klein borrowing cell phones and clothing items from the crowd, climbed high up onto the scaffolding for a song, and welcomed a fan’s newborn baby to the stage, which he cradled precariously while singing. Epic show.

One first for me this year was being part of RIFF Magazine’s coverage of the three day BottleRock festival in Napa, California. BottleRock has been on my radar for awhile but I haven’t had the desire to brave the crowds and traffic until now, and I’m glad I finally did. It wasn’t always easy navigating the many stages and the swarms of other photographers, but I got a chance to shoot some legendary performers for the first time like Snoop Dogg and Ice-T, some old favorites like Twenty One Pilots, and some up-and-coming artists like Ron Artis II and the Truth and OTTTO.

2022 was a great year for fans who were starved of live music during the pandemic. I think I’ve grown more appreciative of the community of live music over these years, and especially so after being denied access to live music these last couple of years. I shot artists with passionate fandoms this year, including former One Direction heartthrob Louis Tomlinson and K-pop boy band ATEEZ, and I’m always thrilled to document those shows because of the intense love I feel when I publish those pictures on social media. I’m looking forward to more of these shows in 2023!