Fun Fun Fun Fest 2014, the ninth installment of the annual festival, was presented at Auditorium Shores in Austin, Texas on Friday through Sunday, November 7-9th. Four stages of simultaneous music and comedy, plus wrestling matches, skate board exhibitions, and sundry other divertissements. Then, later in the night, FFF Fest hosted concerts at various music clubs downtown.
I photographed mainly the Black Stage, which mostly featured punk, hardcore, and metal. And a little bit at the Blue Stage too. And concerts Friday night at Red 7 and Saturday night at The North Door. And I especially enjoyed the smooth and easy shuttle bus rides from just east of downtown to Auditorium Shores. Gliding through the streets of Austin in tour bus style. Who doesn’t appreciate a nicely upholstered bus seat now and then?
The only bad note was when I got a lens knocked out of my eyeglasses as I was shooting from the floor at Red 7. (My right lens, fortunately not my shooting eye.) Looked all over the ground for it with the light from my cell phone. People are so nice sometimes; several came up to help me look. Yeah, I was “that guy”, the guy crawling around looking for his keys or contact lenses or whatever, right in the middle of a rock concert. Couldn’t find it, but figured that I might when they turned the lights on at the end of the show. Sure enough, there it was, right in the middle of the mosh pit. But when I reached out to grab it, it slipped from my hand, as if it were a frog jumping into the bushes, and I had a few minutes looking for it again. I felt that if it alluded me yet again then the Universe would definitely be trying to tell me something, though I wouldn’t have the foggiest what that might be. Then I got the lens in my grasp finally, and I said “I got it! The lens that was stomped on by a hundred punks!” It was not cracked but it was badly chewed up, and I couldn’t reseat it in my frames. The next day I wore a pair of old glasses. When I went to take my first shot of the day, pressing my camera up to my glasses, the right lens of THAT pair of glasses popped out too. Oh well, I shot the rest of the festival pretty much seeing out of only one eye and gladly ignoring whatever it was the Universe was trying to tell me.
Anyway, whatever else I have to express about Fun Fun Fun is expressed in these photos photos photos…
– Submitted by Mark Shapiro, Music Design