REVIEW: Pallbearer, REZN, The Keening at Music Hall of Williamsburg | 06.20.2024
Pallbearer’s Temporary Spaces Tour hit Brooklyn’s Music Hall of Williamsburg last Thursday with support from REZN and The Keening.
It was the first day of summer, and the weather in New York City celebrated accordingly by blessing us all with a scorching heatwave. Hot days hit different in New York. Maybe it’s all the pavement cooking in the sun, or perhaps it’s the fact that we as a species are careening ever faster into a climate crisis of our own making.
That’s neither here nor there I suppose, at least for the sake of this review; it was hot, and that felt somewhat apropos given the title of Pallbearer’s new album, “Mind Burns Alive.” Heat was the theme of the night, in other words, both literally and figuratively.
Pallbearer, REZN, and The Keening all have heavy musical elements, but they aren’t the kind of bands to conjure a mosh pit - not in a physical form, anyway. The “moshing” is more cerebral. A sonic gateway to introspection eliciting a circle pit of thoughts and self-reflection. I was glad to take the ride.
THE KEENING
Like a siren calling in the distance, the voice of The Keening's Rebecca Vernon lured a steady stream of fans into the room and toward the stage. The heaviness of their sound was matched by the weight of Vernon’s lyrics; ethereal and delicate but unafraid to shift suddenly into furious aggression.
Not much light with which to work, though there were moments. Music Hall of Williamsburg doesn’t have a photo pit so I was initially planning to post up on the side and just shoot from there, but the stage is very wide so I quickly realized I’d need to incorporate some laps to the stage and back if for no other reason than to get clearer shots of the members on the opposite side.
Shooting up against the stage, I noticed something felt off with my 24-70mm lens. Sure the lighting was tough so not every shot was going to come out sharp, but this was different. The photos were in focus but the details were flat. Was it the lens? Was it the lights? …was it me?
REZN
REZN’s set lifted the crowd into the stratosphere with every saxophone swell and ensured that I’d be humming the melody to “Optic Echo” for days on end. Vocalist and Guitarist Rob McWilliams ended each song with a cathartic nod of approval to his bandmates, the crowd sharing in the spiritual release from the journey they’d just taken.
Ok, something is definitely up with my lens. I had my 70-200mm on my other camera, but if 70mm is the widest I can go, this is going to be a challenge. And maybe it wasn’t the lens - it could just be the lighting. Or it’s just me.
Regardless, the light improved for REZN and was perhaps the best lighting of the night. I was able to get a decent variety of shots as a result. I can’t deny that the issue with my lens was starting to get to me, though. I was sure something was up.
PALLBEARER
Playing their new album nearly in full with singular visits to records’ past, Pallbearer’s set was doom at its most beautiful. The band’s passionate and sorrowful sound ignited the minds of the crowd into a hypnotic trance of focused attention, broken only by each song’s completion rousing cheers of approval.
At this point I was somehow still determined to gaslight myself into believing I could make my lens work, and I did to some extent. I was able to get some wide shots of the stage that were actually usable.
Vocalist and guitarist Brett Campbell stood more perpendicular than parallel to the stage, which worked to my advantage in that I could stand off to the side and shoot him directly. The lighting was sparse, however consistent in its motion, so I had to time it to catch the light as it moved over him. I used the same approach for drummer Mark Lierly.