30 Seconds over Lollapalooza

Red Hot Chili Peppers never stop moving

Photographing backstage at rock festivals seems like a dream gig. Instead of fighting with twenty other losers for your shots live during the show, you get access to the bands backstage. What could be better than hanging out in the sun all day, bored out of your mind, barely able to hear the music from your odd position amongst the trailers? Oh, well the bands would be delighted to see the photographer from Entertainment Weekly, right? Because, when heading for the stage to play a concert to thousands of paying customers, every band wants to interrupt their pre-show rituals to stand around and be directed by some knucklehead they’ve never met who may well be making photos that make them look shitty (or worse, old). Perhaps the prime example was provided by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. I had seen them play several shows by then, and knew they were what the kids call High Energy. So committed to their art that I had witnessed Flea exiting the rest room at the Ritz wearing only shoes, three sweatsocks, and his bass.

I had just photographed Pearl Jam without Eddie Vedder, which is like having a tuna sandwich with no tuna. Kind of reeling from that, (Entertainment Weekly had assumed Pearl Jam would be their cover), when the Red Hot Chili Peppers appeared I was a little slow on the uptake. The four of them were accompanied by Reed Glick, their tour manager. They headed for the seamless, while Reed Glick made a beeline to me and planted himself right in my personal space. 

“Thirty,” he muttered, in a voice low with menace. I had to lean in to hear, which was even weirder as I was already wanting to lean back away from his combative body language.

What the actual fuck? 

“Twenty nine,” as he moved out of my line of shooting and stepped a yard or so to the side. He elevated his volume from here on out, no doubt so the band could hear him. 

“Twenty eight!” 

Wait, dude, what? No, no, no, I can shoot fast, but not that fast.

“Twenty seven!”

Wait, Mr. Reed Glick, can we talk about this?

“Twenty Six!”

Fuck! I get it, but damn dude, a little warning would be nice. I awoke from my stunned torpor, turned toward the set, and began shooting. Thirty seconds, and I had wasted five of them working through the first couple stages of grief. 

“Twenty Five! Twenty Four! Twenty Three! Twenty Two! Twenty One! Twenty!” My Mamiya RZ takes nearly two and a half seconds to complete its noisy cycle. And ten frames before I have to switch rolls. If Reed Glick had been counting down in real time, I never would have had time to get those three (? Reed Glick) rolls, so I’m thankful for small favors.

“Nineteen! Eighteen! Seventeen! Sixteen! Fifteen! Fourteen! Thirteen! Twelve! Eleven!” And I have to say, those Peppers give like 150%. Nearly every one of those frames is gold. No sitting around looking bored here, no sir. They’re jumping, joking, air guitaring, bouncing around like pinballs. Frankly, with this kind of energy, one shouldn’t need two hours; this concentrated release of exuberance is plenty. That is, if you’re in the right place and the right time. Which I was. The utter boredom of the festival backstage had suddenly and unexpectedly transformed into the absolute terror of a combat operation. As I slipped into that mental state familiar to athletes, meditators, and artists I found myself actually enjoying this. These dynamic individuals, though, without sound or instruments, were nonetheless dueting with me, executing a solo performance of a one-time improvisational dance. This probably helps explain why Red Hot Chili Peppers continue to entertain, at the top of their game even thirty years later. They may give you thirty seconds (or a minute if Reed Glick was feeling charitable) but it is thirty seconds turned up to eleven. We crushed it, at the cost to them of one stinkin’ minute, the cost to me of my first gray hair, and the benefit to all of a killer magazine cover, one of my favorites.

“Ten! Nine! Eight! Seven! Six!” Among many problems with this gonzo method of shooting is the abbreviated shoot time leaves no time for lighting changes, cross processing weirdness, or costume changes. Rolling Stone hit the stands during this period with RHCP standing there virtually naked. Hard to compete with that. I think one of my pictures with them aping and mugging right before going on stage would have made an excellent cover. 

We were all still smarting from Eddie Vedder’s refusal to sit with the rest of his band (like literally every other band there) and the Chili Peppers had wowed everyone at Lollapalooza that day, so it seemed a logical choice. And the art directors there did all of us a solid, elevated the cover to eye-popping excellence by placing the full body shot of the band upside down. Symbolizing the genr- busting energy that the Red Hot Chili Peppers brought to their every move. It might have been a bit of a drag I hadn’t thought to ask them to doff their clothes (they doubtlessly would have without blinking an eye), but I think the upside-down cover is an excellent way to make lemonade out of lemons. The photos are cool, but their use on that cover is fabulous and kicks them up a notch. It’s also one of the few cover shots of the band featuring Arik Marshall

“Five! Four! Three! Two! One!” In the half second the mirror was up and my view through the finder was obstructed, the Red Hot Chili Peppers disappeared, leaving only a clean white seamless to fill my view. I gasped what seemed like my first breath since they’d appeared and glanced at my assistant, who gazed back serenely. “We got it,” she muttered, while continuing to unload and sticker the rolls we’d just exposed. She was right, of course. As a person who routinely looks at the last page of novels or looks for spoilers on the web before watching anything, I always hated the suspense of not knowing for days if I’d gotten the shot. But I have to admit I kind of dig the intense, pin-prick spark of creation, the point of the spear, the horn of the anvil that happens when one is forced to create in such limited time, under such strict conditions. I often struggle to explain this give and take, this pushing against limits to my students. No limits, no art. Thank you for the thirty seconds, Mr. Reed Glick. It was enough.