I was very excited to see Kendrick Lamar at the 2013 Sweetlife Music and Food Festival but ultimately I left wanting more after the first three songs. I like his style and his flow, but Lamar’s stage presence needs some work. He basically walked back and forth across the stage for the first three songs, not unlike Michael from Passion Pit. He wasn’t performing so much as walking around on stage and reciting his lyrics. But he’s just starting out, I’m sure he will get it together. I will say that I loved that it was just him and a DJ up on stage. No entourage.  

Since I couldn’t find a spot that gave me the angle I was looking for, I shot Lamar mostly up close with my 70-200/2.8, focusing on grabbing my shots when he started to walk toward me from the far side of the stage.

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Kendrick Lamar @ Merriweather Post Pavilion – Images by Kyle Gustafson

Gary Clark, Jr. is a badass on the guitar and was a perfect act for an early afternoon slot on the Main Stage at the 2013 Sweetlife Music and Food Festical. He’s got the goods. I bet most of the people on the lawn had no idea who he was when his set started, but they were all chanting his name by the time he was done. Respect.

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Gary Clark, Jr. @ Merriweather Post Pavilion – Images by Kyle Gustafson

Karen O is the alhpa and the omega of photo subjects as far as lead singers go. She is everything you could ever want to photograph and her intensity and exuberance blow me away every time I see her perform. The 2013 Sweetlife Music and Food Festival was the second time I’ve been lucky enough to shoot the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and she did not disappoint. She’s on full blast the entire time she’s on stage and never lets up and that energy gets returned to her from the crowd. All I want in life is to travel the world and shoot her whenever she performs. I’m gushing, so I’ll stop.

I got a prime spot in the middle of the pit for this set and just sat there and tried to keep up. Honestly, I’m not sure these photos really do a good job of portraying just how KINETIC Karen O is on stage. It wasn’t until the third song was alomost over that I thought to myself, “Oh shit, I just took 900 photos of Karen O, I better get a shot of Nick Zinner too!”

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Yeah Yeah Yeahs @ Merriweather Post Pavilion – Images by Kyle Gustafson

I’ve been a fan of Phoenix since the release of Alphabetical back in 2004. It’s  been great to watch them slowly climb up the career ladder and then reach the mountaintop after Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix. I was also very excited to get the chance to shoot them again since the lighting at DAR the last time they came through town was not very good. Unfortunately, that was the case once again at the 2013 Sweetlife Music and Food festival. The first song was pure red the entire time and the next two songs were sporadically lit by spotlight, sometimes resulting in a a 3 stop difference between Thomas Mars and whoever was standing next to him. It was tough sledding.

I was able to grab a spot directly in front of mars and I ended up staying there for the three songs. The pit was pretty crowded and since Mars only went to the other side of the stage once, I didn’t see the point in moving. As a result, I got a lot of shots of Thomas Mars leaning on his stage monitors with my 24-70/2.8.

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Phoenix @ Merriweather Post Pavilion – Images by Kyle Gustafson

I was floored by the HUGE crowd that Passion Pit drew at Coachella. It was easily one of the biggest crowds of the entire festival. So it was no surprise when the same thing happened at the Sweetlife Music and Food Festival last weekend. Kids love them some Passion Pit. I think the band still has some work to do on the stage presence front.. Frontman Michael Angelakos basically spent the entire set walking back and forth across the stage, right and left, back and forth. He stopped every so often to play to the crowd and threw in a jump every now and then, but other than that, there wasn’t much variation.

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Passion Pit @ Merriweather Post Pavilion – Images by Kyle Gustafson

I LOVE Solange’s cover of “Stillness is the Move” by Dirty Projectors but I missed both of her local shows leading up to her appearance on the Main Stage at the 2013 Sweetlife Music and Food Festival. I really enjoyed her set. She was subdued but confident and won the crowd over as her set wore on.

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Solange @ Merriweather Post Pavilion – Images by Kyle Gustafson

I had heard good things about DIIV, so I hustled to Silver Spring to catch their opening set for How To Destroy Angels. I liked their muscular indie rock but wasn’t happy with the low lights and the tendency of the lead singer to play with his back facing the crowd. The guitarist in the other side of the stage made up for it though. He was straight shredding and jumping all over the place.

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DIIV @ Fillmore Silver Spring – Images by Kyle Gustafson

This is the second time I’ve shot A$AP and I have to say I was not impressed. The sound mix certainly didn’t help. It was all over the place and you couldn’t understand a word he said. Since this was the Rihanna show, we were stuck at the soundboard. These photos were taken using a rented 400/2.8.

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A$AP Rocky @ Verizon Center – Images by Kyle Gustafson

I was so excited for this show. Since Coachella I’d been hearing great things about the show and seeing some awesome photos with HTDA’s admittedly awesome stage and lighting set up. But I got none of that at their Fillmore Silver Spring show. I was incredibly let down by the lighting. The band played behind an elaborate set up of fiber optic cables that moved around the stage, but for the first three, they mainly stayed away from using any color other than red. Apparently the great lighting I’d been seeing in photos came from later int he set. The whole thing was just a huge let down.

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How To Destroy Angels @ Fillmore Silver Spring – Images by Kyle Gustafson

This was a fun gig (compared to all the boring gigs I’ve been shooting lately). Bajofondo is an eight person group that plays a mix of tango and electric music. Not unlike Thievery Coproration. They were high energy and so was the crowd. The violin guy dominated most of my shots, but he was kind of the ringleader of the entire group.

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Bajofondo @ 9:30 Club – Images by Kyle Gustafson