Last weekend I went to check out, and photograph, the Rock Vegas Festival, a 2 day concert at the Mandalay Bay Resort. I ended up with over 1100 images, so I had to cut that back a bit. This post will cover some of the Day 2 bands I shot, and you can find the Day 1 post here.

After the first day of shooting all afternoon in the sun, and then most of the night bands indoors, I decided to shoot a few less bands on day 2. This was the big day, Marilyn Manson and Rob Zombie. Yeah!

What? We can’t shoot Manson? Ah Man!!!! More on that later…

Here are some of the Day 2 shots:

All That Remains

This was the closer on the outside stage for Day 2. The crowd loved these guys!

Art Of Dying

Kicking off the arena part of Day 2 was Art Of Dying. I have to say I enjoyed these guys a lot, except for the lighting. This was crazy dark. I am guessing they had no control of it, but it was one of the toughest shoots I have ever had. I actually like some of the shots, but man it was dark.

Corey Taylor

He did a great acoustic set, and Spongebob Squarepants was just the beginning. He is worth seeing, seriously. He did some of the Stone Sour stuff too of course.

Buckcherry

My biggest surprise of Day 2 was Buckcherry. These guys nailed it!

Marilyn Manson

So, for Marilyn Manson there were only 3 approved photographers, and they only got 1 song. I think the phrase I heard was “if you don’t leave after 1 song he does mean things”, or something like that. Then, a chunk of the first song he spent with his back turned to the crowd. I am kind of glad I did not shoot it, but I get it. Some artists want to have more control over their image, and when the artist is controversial to begin with… it may be a good idea. So since we could not shoot, we watched. I have heard a lot about Manson shows before, and maybe it was built up too much, but it fell short for me – and a lot of the other photographers seemed to agree. Manson also seemed to be having a bad tech night. Gear failed, and he seemed not too happy.

This was the longest wait between bands. We finished shooting Buckcherry before 8 pm, and then waited to shoot Zombie who did not go on until after 11.

Rob Zombie

SEE. THIS. SHOW.

This dude puts on a freaking fantastic production. Absolutely Fantastic!

I have heard a lot about shooting Zombie… lots of red, and green, and solid colors which make shooting hard. Yup. It’s a crazy shoot, but man it was fun and went way too fast.

Again, overall, Rock Vegas was a blast. I hope they keep doing some sort of multi-day concert each fall there.

If you went, or have seen any of these bands, comment below.