We zip ahead now to Thursday, February 16th.  Back at the Mexicali Live in Teaneck, this concert featured a whopping five acts on the bill. Cassadee Pope, late of Hey Monday, was the headliner.  Due to the early 7:00 start, I knew going in I’d likely miss the first band, the Nashville-based Darling Parade.  As it turns out, I got there in time to catch their last three or four songs.  Looking at the time stamps on the pictures, I see I shot them for all of 14 minutes.  For a large venue, that’s about all I’d expect — three songs and out.  I like Mexicali because I generally have the run of the place — no “3 songs and out” restrictions and a venue that’s small enough and not so overcrowded that I can walk around and shoot from different spots.

When I walked in, Stephen Jerzak was on the mic singing with the band.  His set was scheduled to go on a couple hours later, but he popped up a couple of times through the night with others.  Of course, I didn’t realize this at first, but I caught on pretty quickly.  So, here, the first pic of the write-up is of someone not from the band:

After the focusing debacle the previous week, I’m happy to say things went better that night.  It wasn’t always perfect, but it was much better than the last outing. The biggest problem was just the usual fight against the spotlights in an otherwise dark stage.  From some angles, the light blew out the faces while hiding everything else in an inky blackness. I fought it as much as I could, knowing that Lightroom would be needed to save the day.  It’s nights like this one that make me want to go download LR4 and start that beta test now. I hear it’s a better processor for pics now.  I hope so. . .

Not much to report here, otherwise.  You had a camera magnet lead vocalist, a guitarist who was melting under the lights, a drummer lost in the shadows behind them, and a bassist on the far side of the stage that I never had a chance to focus on.

They sounded great, though: a rock/pop group from deep in the heart of country music.  A couple of their songs have been used by Hollywood already, and it’s only a matter of time before one of them hits undeniably big for them.  You can follow them on their website, DarlingParade.com or via Facebook or by going straight to Twitter…  Looks like their tour with this set of acts is over, but they’re still driving all over the east coast doing more shows for another month, at least.

More pics after the break:

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