Barry White?

Well not the real Barry White, but certainly somebody who sounds like Barry White; Thomas Stowers.  For a couple of hours we were treated to the Barry White sounds of the 1970's.  The band was very good indeed with a nice tight sound.  Bass playing by Semi Leo was perfect, Paul Voight superb on lead guitar, Mark Dennison on saxophone and Paul Norman on trumpet.  I hadn't realised this, but Mark played for the real Barry White.  Paul Norman is also a bit of a legend as a result of all the work he has done around the schools and nurturing some of NZ's top musical talents.  When he was at Avondale College their Jazz bands took out numerous NZ jazz festival awards.  Hardly surprising then with talent a plenty on stage that the music was good and the audience loved it.  All being well there'll be other gigs so more people can enjoy the performances.  More photos are on Facebook, and heaps more on my computer!

The light on Thomas was great, but the rest of the band was less well lit.  I must admit that I didn't find it that easy.  I wanted to use a low ISO to avoid noise, but keep the shutter speed as high as possible.  However, ISO settings ranged from 400 through to 6400 and shutter speeds from 1/25 up to 1/800sec.  Also, with the audience seated I really didn't want to get in the way and obscure folk's views of the performers.  Quite different to what I've been used to at the Cock 'n Bull or Osborne Street!  I must say though, that as the evening progressed I felt more at ease and started to have a bit more fun.

I'll close this post with a few more images of Thomas.  Don't forget to let me know what you think and you can always take a squiz at a lot more photos on Facebook.