Normally I don’t shoot music festivals unless I am getting paid a lot of money. I shot nothing but bands for the first 8 years of my photo career and I sort of hate doing it now. With digital camera’s and the “three songs, no flash” photo pit rules every single photographer gets nearly the same shot of every band and every band gets photographed by a million people a year. So what’s the point? On top of that shooting festivals is even worse. But yet I headed to Austin over the weekend to shoot a music festival and I will be lucky if I break even.

Fun Fun Fun Fest has year after year the best line up of bands in the country. They bring in legendary artists in hip hop, punk, metal, pop and even comedy. They tend to have very diverse bands that all work so well together that you are running back and forth because so often there are multiple bands playing at the same time that you want to see. During the fest I knocked a couple bands of my life time bucket list and got to see FOUR bands that my punk cover band Fucking Bullshit covers. It was epic.

On top of that I love Austin and will take any chance to spend time there. I got to see a bunch of friends and I even photographed four naked girls there including one I ran into in the street and a stranger I was introduced to who had never posed nude before. Did I mention breakfast burritos and BBQ? I fucking love Austin.

Anyway, I got to a late start on Friday after photographing Quinn Cornchip again, but I got to see Little Boots, Kurt Vile, Big Freedia, Lupe Fiasco, Patton Oswalt and mother fucking Flag. Black Flag is probably the most important band to me in my life. They were my introduction to punk and their early material when they were fronted by Keith Morris was fucking life changing. Keith got the band back together with four Black Flag members but can’t call the band Black Flag because guitarist Greg Ginn owns the name. Ginn started his own band called Black Flag that only has two former members (although Ron Reyes was my favorite singer) and they just released a new album which is honestly better than expected. Still, I was way more excited about Flag than I was about Black Flag and they did not disappoint. Two songs into their set I jumped out of the photo pit and into the mosh pit and it was honestly one of the best experiences I have had at a concert in years.

On top of all that I got to meet BMX legend Mat Hoffman and eat free Twinkies (they are back and way worse than I remember). It was a pretty good Friday and I was wrecked by the end of Flag’s set but I was ready to do it all the next day and Saturday was jam packed with bands. I will have those photos tomorrow but in the mean time check out the pictures from Friday!

Click here to see all the photos from Fun Fun Fun Fest Friday at Auditorium Shores in Austin, TX!

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