Blue.

Something about the Jayhawks mentioned recently in a note triggered a fleeting memory, and I had to dig through my negatives. The lab I took these to way back in 2002 preserved these very underexposed negatives so well, individually sealing each strip. I had to carefully peel back the archival adhesive to be able to fit them through the scanner, and so there’s a thin line running across the bottom of every negative. I’m sure there’s a correct way to clean them, but I just quickly scanned them, dust and lines and all.

Circa 2002. This was one of my favorite things. I kept a calendar of shows, and saw live music multiple times a week, there in Dallas, or the hour north in Denton, sometimes even making a six hour round-trip drive to Austin if a touring band wasn’t coming to town. Music was my savior. It was my everything. It kept me sane. And, if I was taking photos of the band when they played, I was less likely to drink and smoke too much, something I’d gotten in the habit of doing too often.

There’s nothing so serious about these. They’re not smart or good - only dark, moody, and very underexposed. Just a memory of one of my favorite bands, on a rare acoustic tour, played at an old German fraternal organization’s hall turned into a live music venue.

20something years old, a Shiner between my Converse on a wooden ballroom floor, next to one of my best friends, watching one of my favorite bands, at one of the best venues, under estimating the light needed for my new zoom lens, with no flash (never flash!) on my completely manual Pentax, and trying not to draw attention to myself, I quietly took two rolls. (One I haven’t come across).

This Jayhawks lineup was Gary Louris, standing front and center, Tim O’Reagan, and Marc Perlman (in the dark). April 8, 2002, Sons of Hermann Hall.