Last month, KERRANG! magazine asked me to photograph Dillinger Escape Plan in concert here in NYC. After I accepted the assignment, I went to the band’s MySpace page and immediately wondered what I had gotten myself into.
Their style is called “mathcore” or “technical metalcore” which is an incredibly complex style of play featuring odd time signatures and song structures. It’s very heavy and loud, and the lead vocalist is usually screaming the lyrics at the top of his lungs (or at least it sounds that way to me).
While it’s not a style I normally listen to, the musicians are quite talented. Thank goodness for earplugs though, because working right in front of the stage for an extended period of time could do some serious damage to my ear drums.
The audience was rowdy, as expected. Bodies were flying everywhere and I had to keep one eye in my viewfinder and the other on the crowd.
At one point, I got an accidental kick to the face which gave me a pretty good bloody nose. After my eyes stopped watering, I was able to shoot the rest of the set. Luckily nothing was broken — I just had a nice scab on the bridge of my nose for about a week.
I had a feeling that there would be some interesting photos at the show. Near the end of the set, lead singer Greg Puciato pulled a Gene Simmons by breathing fire out over the crowd. He then stepped out into the audience, let someone hold up the rod with the open flame and shot it out over their heads.
 
It was a pretty dramatic moment and one that I was happy to have captured. The photo is the main image for the concert review in KERRANG!
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