I ventured out last night to local dive-ish venue Jammin’ Java to see some rockstar friends of ours play in a band battle. Kevin and Hanson’s new band One City Mile closed out the six or seven-band show for a loud, enthusiastic crowd full of friends and would-be groupies. If only half of us weren’t still in work clothes, we would have looked like such a young, hip crowd that goes to band battles on the regular…

After wandering “backstage” (read: to the restroom) and snapping a picture before they went on, I took a ridiculous amount of photos of them performing. It was the first time I took a ton of photos in a dark environment that actually turned out not bad. Aperture success!

Rock on Hanson.

Out of about 150 pictures, I posted the first 30 decent ones that I was able to work on last night here.

I had a great time and it was fun to see how many friends and supporters they had come to see them play. A band from North Carolina called Delta Rae — who broke into a really cool a Capella  folksy gospel-style song mid-set — ended up winning the battle, but it was a tough competition. All the bands I saw were awesome, especially One City Mile and the chick band that went on before them. Unfortunately they all played different genres of music so I thought it was kind of unfair to compare them. But I’m sure Kevin and Hanson aren’t too broken up about it and hopefully this means they’ll play a full show sometime soon. Hopefully on a Friday night, when my sleep schedule youthfulness has time to recover.