2022 – Concerts: Faces In The Crowd
(ignore April 30, 2017 publish date – this was published on February 1, 2022)
There are 27 other crowd shots and stories on https://bobleafe.com/ under – what else? – “Crowd Shots”. Here are 28 more that I recently came across that were taken between 1978 and 1991.
I’m not going to show them in any particular order. I’ll post them in the order they are in the folder.
Photographically, this first one is the worst one. It was taken in 1982 in West Palm Beach, Florida. What was significant about this show was that U2 was the opening act (!) for the J. Geils Band. The angle of the shot suggests a sunken pit, but I really don’t recall……..and up the nose is my least favorite shot:
This was taken in 1985 when Bon Jovi was filming a video (“Silent Night”) at the Capitol Theatre in Passaic, NJ. They needed a crowd, but didn’t have one and a less-than-full-house just wouldn’t do for a Bon Jovi video, so they put out a call to WNEW-FM tell anyone who was in the area to come in for free.
It filled up fast.
They’re holding up their lighters (pre-cell phone days, you know):
It’s always nice to photograph calm, sophisticated women:
All you have to do is simply aim a camera in the crowd’s general direction……….no words are needed:
I heard a rumor that this might be the My Pillow guy discovering his product in 1982:
I was trying for a candid crowd shot at a Judas Priest show, but got discovered:
This was taken in 1983 at Steve Wozniak’s 3-day Us Festival in Devore, CA – the largest show I ever shot. The crowd size supposedly rivaled Woodstock’s (which I also attended). And it was hot…………but some people – fortunately – got sprayed (there’s a similar shot in my site’s “Crowd Shots”):
These two were taken at an outdoor oldies show at Action Park in Great Gorge, NJ, in 1982:
Love the waitress outfit (and the “food”)!
More camera-crazed fans at an Alice Cooper show in Riverside, CA in 1990:
Gee, I wonder if this was taken at a hair-metal band show. The time was right (1987):
This was taken backstage at the huge Elton John show in Manhattan’s Central Park in 1980:
Here are two very different crowd reactions at the “Four Free” show in West Orange, NJ in 1980:
I’m pretty sure I took this 1991 shot at a mid-day Alice Cooper show in Times Square, NYC:
Here’s THE crowd shot for the Monsters of Rock 1988 concert at JFK Stadium in Philadelphia:
And out of ALL those people there that day, wouldn’t you know I’d find this one:
There’s another shot of her taken just before this moment in my site’s Crowd Shots.
Here’s another female with problems (don’t know what they were), taken 10 years earlier at Giants Stadium:
The following year, I took this from the stage at Giants Stadium:
More front-row females – this time at the Joe Lewis Arena in Detroit where I shot a Bon Jovi/Skid Row show in 1989 (whose arm is that, reaching for my camera?):
Queen made an in-store appearance at a Crazy Eddie’s on 59th St in Manhattan in 1982. Here’s the line outside:
Interesting outfit………..there’s another shot of her in my site’s Crowd Shots:
My copyrighted balloon is about to get smacked at the Capitol Theatre in 1984:
Pier 84 in Manhattan was an interesting place to shoot shows – especially since the USS Intrepid was berthed right next door (taken in 1987):
Not sure where this 1981 shot of a lascivious-looking young lady was taken (best offer I had all day!):
I was onstage at a Dead Kennedys show in Manhattan in 1981 when this fan stage-dived (stage-dove?) into the audience. The photographer on the far right is oblivious:
Jovial crowd at the Amnesty International concert at Giants Stadium in 1986 (I had to check to make sure this wasn’t a Beach Boys show):
Ending on a patriotic note, here’s a Bon Jovial young lady at the Bon Jovi New Year’s Eve show at the Brendan Byrne Arena in East Rutherford, NJ, on December 31, 1986:
That’s it!
See anybody you know?
I actually looked! Till I realized I most likely would not have been at any of those shows.
Fun Post.
My brother Brian, and I were at the Elton show in Central Park, but not backstage like the girl with the neck apparatus!