Last night, Flogging Molly kicked off the Florida Music Festival downtown with a bad ass show and I was lucky enough to grab an extra media pass at the last minute and have a fantastic night seeing one of my favorite bands from times badly missed. Back when we used to sit on the hot black tar of Florida asphalt outside Static and Barberellas was the place to be on a Sunday night.

Luckily I didn’t have to mash in with the crowd and risk getting kicked in the head by a crowd surfer as has happened to me so many times. (ahem, dropkick murphies + steel toed boots = pain) I got to be right up front in the scary press zone 4 inches from the stage with all that is separating us and our cameras from the huge, sweaty vortex of a punk show mosh pit is a flimsy metal gate and two beefy security dudes. They were in the fight for their lives to try to keep the gate and the crowd from squishing us like tiny ladybugs.

After a few shots of whiskey, I managed to get some good shots of the band with my much-less nice camera than the other media were toting. During the second half of the show, after the videographers left and they cut the media from the front of the stage I decided to take a chance and head over to the other wing and the stage entrance. The one apathetic security guard just shrugged when I asked if I could get onto stage to shoot from the wings, so I ended up spending the second half of the show about five feet from the band right next to some monitors. It was freaking awesome, I must say. There were a few other drunk media guys there that were just dancing and jamming to the music so I tried to shed my fear of ‘i don’t belong here’ and just enjoyed the show from the best seat in the house. It’s nights like this that remind me why my job is awesome.