Almost every night of the year, New York City has dozens of concerts every night. From bands playing in seat bars to national acts packing Madison Square Garden, New York City has something to offer anyone, no matter what their musical taste. And that is no more apparent than on New Year’s Eve, when you get the best of the best playing all over the city. I had always wanted to showcase this night of music by photographing as many shows as I could in one night. This New Year’s Eve had a great lineup of acts, from Phish at Madison Square Garden to Wynton Marsalis at the intimate Dizzy’s Club Coca Cola.

The first show of the night for me was Wynton Marsalis at Dizzy’s Club Coca Cola, the early 7:30 show. Wynton has been the face behind getting Jazz at Lincoln Center started and he is the director of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. Rather than play in the much larger Rose Hall, this was an exclusive show at the smaller Dizzy’s. I had never been to the venue before, but it’s a beautiful looking place and the stage is setup in front of a floor to ceiling window that gives you a nice view of the neighboring city, as the venue is on the fifth floor. There was just enough from for the waiters to move in and out, as all available space was made available for tables and chairs, so moving around to photograph was not easy. But the staff of the venue was very accommodating and were not hovering over me watching everything I did. The lighting was also not particularly great and we were allowed two songs, so made the best of it. They started with “Corrine, Corrina,” which I believe is a traditional New Orleans song and followed up with a bluesy number. The band sounded great, you can tell these are some of the best musicians out there and Wynton, despite being the most known name on the stage, doesn’t treat himself any different than his bandmates. He takes the same length of solo and sits at the same level as everyone else. While most musicians of his stature would try to differentiate himself, Wynton seems at ease just being a part of the orchestra rather than the star.

Despite starting to get comfortable listening to these great jazz musicians, but unfortunately it was time to move on, to the second venue of the night I had never been to before, City Winery. Los Lobos was headlining two New Year’s Eve shows here for the second year in a row and the place was definitely sold out. But the venue was not over packed and there was room to move around. I got there towards the end of their set and the crowd was fully invested in what the band was doing. Los Lobos is a unique band in that they can play a wide variety of musical genres, from rock to latin with a taste of cajun zydeco mixed in. They mix classic covers with originals and the crowd was loving it. At the end of their set, they started the crowd on a sing-along of “Not Fade Away,” the Buddy Holly song that became a staple of the Grateful Dead. Midway through the song, the band kicked into the Dead’s "Bertha and the crowd went right along with them. People were dancing in the aisles and singing along and I was right along with them. They did a real nice job with the song and ended it with a huge ovation as they walked off stage. As I packed up my stuff to move onto the next stop on the trip, they came back on stage and played the song that helped them gain renown in the mainstream, “La Bamba,” which they
recorded for the title track of the movie back in 1987. While the crowd probably knew it was coming, they continued dancing and singing, I was off on my first of two trips to Brooklyn.

Initially I had only planned on one trip to Brooklyn, but I knew there was going to be a lapse between the two early shows I was going to cover and the crux of the evening, which was around 11pm when most of the headlining shows would start. It was about 9:30 and I knew that Charles Bradley would be opening for the Budos Band at the Music Hall of Williamsburg around 10pm and I had wanted to see him, so I hoofed it over to Brooklyn. The Music Hall of Wiliamsburg is a pretty good venue with nice sightlines, as there is the main floor, two small elevated sections on the sides and a balcony. I knew that Mr. Bradley was a soul throwback, a lesser known James Brown type performer (Bradley actually used to do a tribute show to James Brown, which he will be recreating at the Hiro Ballroom) who despite his age, 63, moves around like he is 33. Like most soul performers, his band came out and played a couple groovy tunes to warm up the crowd and then the side door to the stage opened and out walked the “Screaming Eagle of Soul” Charles Bradley. Wearing a white three piece suit, Bradley took over the room before ever putting the microphone to his face. The crowd gave him the respect he deserved and once he grabbed that mic, Bradley didn’t disappoint. While only able to stay for a couple songs, Bradley was a soulful and exciting on stage as anyone I had seen, James Brown included. He wiped the microphone around, dropped to his knees to sing and moved around on stage like you would imagine a much younger man would. Even when he slowed the set down for a soulful ballad, he was no less expressive on stage and the crowd was no less invested in what he was doing. Once again I did not want to leave, as he was actually the person I was most excited to see perform on this night, as I had never seen him before, but I had to be at the Hammerstein Ballroom by 11:30 and so it was time to head back under the river to Manhattan.
Matt and Kim were headlining the Hammerstein, a venue I have been to before but never photographed in and Matt and Kim are a group I’ve never really listened to before, so I didn’t know what to expect. Wikipedia describes their music as “dance punk”, whatever that means, but I can tell you the Hammerstein was absolutely packed with people ready to dance their faces off to these two Brooklyn natives. As I tried to walk through the crowd to get to the photo pit, there were dozens of large multicolored glowsticks that were handed out before the show as fans came in. Despite Matt and Kim not hitting the stage yet, the glow sticks were being waved around in anticipation of the duo’s entrance. As the lights went down and the two walked on stage, Matt and Kim seemed as excited as the crowd to be performing. They hopped around the stage with huge smiles on their faces and greeted the crowd, waving and throwing confetti in the air. As Kim settled behind the drums and Matt behind his keyboards, they launched into their first song and for the next thirty minutes I was there, kept that energy going until the stroke of midnight, when they dropped confetti from the ceiling and thanked the crowd for their support.

While not knowledgeable at all of their music, I was impressed with their energy and the love a jam packed seemed to be feeding the duo and how Matt and Kim returned that and seemed to be somewhat genuinely overwhelmed to be playing such a big venue on New Year’s Eve. It seems that 2011 was the breakout year for Matt and Kim, who announced they would be taking time off the road to start working on a new album. But as they launched into their first song of 2012, I walked out of the Hammerstein onto the streets of New York City, somewhat forgetting that the year just changed over, despite the big confetti drop inside the Hammerstein. It wasn’t until I saw some cops shaking hands and wishing each other a happy new year did I realize that yet another year was over. And while I started on my way to my next venue, I seemed to have no choice but to reflect on the past year, the many ups and the tremendous low I experienced in 2011 and how one year ago I was at Brooklyn Bowl ringing in the New Year with a great Roots concert and thought I had a pretty good idea what 2011 would bring, but walking to the subway to start up towards Terminal 5, I remembered the quote my mom always told me “Life is what happens to you while you’re making other plans.” And that seems to be true whether it’s one night in New York City or when you’re thinking about the next year or years of your life, you can only plan so much, but must ride the waves of life.

On a smaller scale, my mom’s quote was true on this night, as I had hoped to be at Terminal 5 earlier than I got there, around 12:30. Gogol Bordello, the gypsy punk band, which I just looked up is another local band, from the lower east side of Manhattan, was headlining the sold out Terminal 5. I have seen Gogol a few times and know the energy they bring to the stage and knew they would be really great to photograph, unfortunately they also have a first three song photograph policy and I had to choose between them and Matt and Kim. I have photographed at Terminal 5 in the past and knew they’re usually ok with credential photographers photographing from the crowd and wasn’t sure of Hammerstein’s policy, so that’s why I hit Matt and Kim first. I had also hoped that by the time I got to Gogol, that the crowd would have thinned out. I was very wrong about that. As I walked into Terminal 5, the will call window was closed so I had to talk to the head of security. I explained that I was supposed to photograph but didn’t have my pass yet and could I just photograph from the crowd. His response of “Good luck” with a laugh gave me a pretty good idea what I was walking into. What I was walking into was wall to wall people going crazy as Gogol Bordello jumped around the stage. There was no chance I was going to be able to work through the crowd to get up close and there was an overwhelming amount of humidity, so bad that when I got to the balcony to try and grab a couple shots, there was condensation on my lens. All the balconies were filled with people against the rail, so it was difficult to see the band, which for a group like Gogol Bordello, their visual presence on stage is as important as their music. After grabbing some shots from the crowd, who was ready to receive any command coming from the band on stage, I worked my way outside. At this point much of the Times Square crowd was now in the streets making their way home or to the closest bar to continue the celebration, leaving travel very difficult. I tried to hop in a cab to get down to the L subway on 14th and 8th, but after 4 blocks and 15 minutes wasted, I got out and jumped on the closest subway to get me downtown. Eventually I made it back to Brooklyn for the second time of the night, but lost quite a bit of time and got to Brooklyn Bowl at 1:30 to try and catch the last few songs of Deer Tick.

Unfortunately, life had other plans. I had been told that Deer Tick would play till 2ish, but that was someone who worked at Brooklyn Bowl, but when I got to the security guard out front, I was told no, they had just gotten off stage. I was upset because I had been excited to see Deer Tick for the first time and because Brooklyn Bowl is probably in the top three venues for me in New York City and I love
being in there. So I thought my night in Brooklyn was over, as I was told the Budos was only playing till 1am and it was already 1:30, but figured while I was around the corner I mine as well make sure. As I approached the Music Hall of Williamsburg, I could hear some horns playing the venue, so I rushed in and snapped as many pictures as I could, figuring this was their last song based on how many musicians
were on stage, members of Bradley’s band in addition to the large Budos Band. The Budos played their afrobeat funk to a grooving crowd who had stuck around for over three hours since Charles Bradley had hit the stage at 10:30. The song was indeed their last and I left, for my seventh and final stop of the night, BB King’s in Times Square to catch the last scheduled New York City show for The New Deal.
Two more subway rides and I was in Times Square, where two hours ago, tens of thousands of people had spent their last minutes of 2011 huddled together to ring in the new year together, but now Times Square was relatively empty, except for dozens of cops and sanitation workers armed with shovels and leaf blowers cleaning up the New Year’s Celebration. As I got to the doors of BB Kings after 2am, there was still a line of people trying to get tickets to the show. I got my pass and went downstairs into the venue, where dancing electronic fans were eagerly awaiting the New Deal to hit the stage.

A few minutes later the three members settled behind their instruments, informed the crowd their 4am curfew had been pushed back to 5am and launched into their first song. While not a big electronic listener, I must say I enjoyed their grooves and the crowd’s energy was tough to not feed off of. Of course with all bands of this sort, the lighting was terrible as they try to set the mood with dark, dim lights, but was able to get the side stage and grab a couple shots, but by this time I was ready to call it a night. As I worked my way through the crowd, around 3am, my journey was over and as I walked from Times Square to 1st avenue, it was interesting to try and remember the night, but New York City has a way of not letting you think about the past as there is always something going on, even at 3am. Walking past people still trying to get into clubs, couples outside bars fighting or making out, friends carrying friends home like they are wounded soldiers or the group of four young woman I observed just sitting on the sidewalk just outside a subway station and rather than think about my night, I started to wonder what their night was like and how they ended up deciding to hang out at close to 4am now on the sidewalk outside the subway. Maybe they were trying to take a moment and relive their night or their year, before letting life move them into a new year.