I’m back from Warped Tour, which was a blast. Aside from photographing some two-dozen bands at the St. Louis stop of the festival, I also picked up a little souvenir, courtesy of Gym Class Heroes.
As reported by Rolling Stone, Perez Hilton, and Warped Tour’s Buzznet site, Gym Class Heroes singer Travis McCoy was involved in an incident where he quite literally broke a mic over someone’s head, which you can read all about in the aforementioned links. McCoy was later arrested after the performance and released on bail this morning.
The above image is a snap of the mic grill that flew off during the assault. Police evidence, or fun festival souvenir?
In other news, Warped Tour was an interesting festival shoot, as I spent just about as much back stage shooting portraits as I did doing live coverage.
As always, I’ll be back posting images and a write-up from the event shortly.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 2nd, 2008 at 1:51 pm and is filed under Music Photography and tagged with 2008, arrest, assault, beating, fan, gym class heroes, hit, insult, mic, police, slur, st. louis, travis mccoy, warped tour. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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My name is Todd, and I love the rock show. My work has appeared in publications such as Rolling Stone, SPIN, the New York Times, Alternative Press, Metal Hammer, Entertainment Weekly, and Billboard Magazine. I'm available for worldwide travel for editorial and commercial assignments.
As usual, I can’t wait to see your shots. I bet you’re exhausted after shooting all day like that!
BTW, this quote is RIDICULOUS!
McCoy apologized for his violent reaction and said it wasn’t representative of him as a person. “I’m sorry. But when someone calls you something that ignorant and that offensive, you have to bash their head in with a microphone,” said McCoy.
It was a lot of fun. I’ve got some work to do tonight to chug through all of the images, but I’ll be posting them soon.
I brought two Nikon speedlights and once again did a little CLS work with them. I was planning on bringing only one flash at first, but I’m really glad I brought the second, it was great for backstage stuff.
The Gym Class Heroes thing was pretty nuts. Everyone seemed in shock of what happened, but the show went on after that.
I don’t like to take sides, but I really don’t like racist comments or actions… Still nothing should be an excuse to resort to violence…
Oh well…
Todd as always I’m staying tuned waiting for your shots!
Their addictive as cocain! At least I think they are… Never tried cocaine… :P
Best Regards!
Hey Celso! I’ll be able to post some of my favorite shots by the end of day tomorrow, I think, so stay tuned.
Thanks for the comment, glad to hear you’re liking the site!
since i got a sneak preview of the set i must say i’m a big fan of the Academy Is photos between the buses!
Hey Jason, thanks! We were really trying to get coverage of the Academy Is, but the only way it worked for them was if we did the interview/shoot at their buses at the end of the festival.
We did some shots on the bus, but the guys were really cool about doing one setup outside. Glad it worked out. Bringing a second flash was really key for the bus shots.
Man this was a crazy day. I had a feeling that Travis was going to be arrested. As I was walking away from the stage after shooting I saw a few cops walking in that direction. Wish I was able to get a few pics of the fight but it was kind of hard when you have three guys in yellow pushing you back when they go to pass you.
I was going to start working on my pics today but ended up being called into work just when I started so I will probably not get around to working on them till Saturday. Can’t wait to see your shots.
Hey Dustin,
Nice seeing you in the pit at Warped. It was definitely a crazy day. I’m surprised I didn’t get knocked over in the bumrush surrounding the microphone beating.
I’ll be posting chucks of shots here and there over the next week or so. I have enough shots for days and days of posts!
Todd! Just saw your set up on RS.com! You covered an amazing amount of ground in one day! Can you tell me your workout regimine to prepare so I can start before my Warped date in a few weeks! =] Amazing stuff..I really loved the portrait shots of Cobra Starship and the shot of Michael and William from TAI. I’ll wait for your full write-up but I’m curious to know about your flash set up for the portrait work in general and if the bands were available for portraits in the media tent or if you had soomething set up specifically through RS to shoot the portraits.
Amazing work as always, thanks for continuing to inspire me!
Hey Mary,
Glad you saw the RS set! I think the writer and myself did a pretty solid job of getting everything on our punchlist, even if it meant sprinting between gigs at times. I was literally running between gigs more times than I can recall at Warped, but I guess that’s how it goes.
We set up shoots/interviews with the on-site press coordinator, who, by the way, is simply awesome. She knocked out absolutely everything we could have wanted. Totally rock star.
Damn, I wish I got that photo of The guy from Gym Class Heroes smashing the mic on that guy’s head! I saw the news but didn’t realize it was in St Louis. I saw all the photos on RS. Are you shooting for them now as well? Lucky bastard haha. I can’t wait to shoot the Warped Tour though, always a fun & tiring day.
Hey Bryan,
Ha, we’ll see if those shots get any play… St. Louis is a dangerous place, watch out. This was the first piece I’ve done for the website. Keep your eyes peeled for the full set!