JJ Grey & MOFRO, The Variety Playhouse, and my iPhone

This past Saturday I was at the sold out JJ Grey and MOFRO show at the Variety playhouse with my friends Melissa and Laurie. It was such a good time for all of us I think -- they put on a amazing show -- and we were literally right up on the stage. Like me, JJ Grey is from North Florida -- so he sings about things I can relate to -- like loving ho cakes. He has a loyal fan following; and those fans seemed to be pretty mellow people, my kind of people. I haven't had that much fun at a concert in a long time. Check out these shots I took and edited with my iPhone while there:

All shots are seen here in the reverse order that I took them in. To view the shots a little larger just click on them:

He is singing a song here called "King Hummingbird". It's a lament to a hummingbird he needlessly shot and killed as a kid. So soulful and beautiful. Here is a link to him performing it live -- but I highly recommend you go to iTunes and download it. You can thank me later. It's so gorgeous and sad at the same time. The whole album is worth buying really.

He has a awesome horn section; they were getting down with it.

One of my favorite shots of the night.

He is a great guitar player, singer and harp player. I think he plays drums and piano too, he just didn't at the show. You can see how much of himself he puts into it when he plays though. The dude is a amazing musician.

This is him describing how his mom looked the first time she heard a song played on the radio that is on his new album; while he was in the car with her. It's called Slow, Hot & Sweaty. It's probably the dirtiest song you will ever hear that has no curse words in it.  "Get your girl pregnant just listenin' to it..."

Another favorite shot from the show.

And another favorite shot from the show.

His pedal steel and slide player -- he is not lacking in talent either.

You just gotta love a company that decides to call themselves "Trailer Trash".
Trailer Trash, LLC = Funny

Laurie ask me to get a shot of his boots -- so this one is for her.

Another favorite shot.

My first shot of the night taken during the first song of the set. Also a favorite.

As you can see, I was literally right up on the stage to have gotten these shots with my phone. It amazes me what kind of work you can do with an iPhone these days. Sure I could have made them better had I shot them with one of my actual cameras and edited them in Photoshop -- but it's much faster and fun when you do stuff like this with a iPhone. 

They were filming for a live DVD at this show, and I suspect my face is gonna be seen in it more than a few times since there was a stationary camera pointed right at JJ Grey's back and my face the whole time. I will be buying that DVD though -- how could I not considering that it was such a good show, right?

Also check out the local Atlanta band that opened for them called Ponderosa -- they put on an excellent show too. I was impressed enough with them that I bought one of their albums after the show.