Home > Rock

01/14/2024

Zakk Sabbath at the Roseland Theater on 12/22/2023 - Photos

By SYDNEY LEWIS & MIKE LEWIS // Daughter and father in the photo pit at the Roseland to shoot Zakk Sabbath, one of her favorites. Also notes plus video with Mike and Sydney.

Back in 2021, concerts were slowly starting to make their way back although with a few restrictions here and there. Having taken at least a year off, Sydney had been just as anxious to get back into the photo pit as I was and with Black Label Society stopping in Portland, it seemed like the perfect opportunity. Although Sydney was in fact approved for the show, we soon learned there was a major stumbling block that we couldn’t overcome.

The show just happened to be a 21+ event and there was no way to work around that. Zakk Wylde however gave Sydney another, unexpected option and while she didn’t get to photograph the show, she did get a meet and greet where she also had two of my photos autographed.

Since that day, she’s wanted to get approved for Zakk Wylde one way or another.

Over two years later, Zakk has made his way back to Portland once again, although this time he was on tour as Zakk Sabbath, his cover band that as most know centers on covering Black Sabbath songs. The tour also featured The Native Howl, a Michigan based act that has blended elements of thrash metal and bluegrass to create something very different from the norm. Sydney and I also actually had covered The Native Howl a few months prior when they were on the road with Avatar. The lighting however wasn’t the greatest, so a second offering wasn’t a bad thing.

This was one of those shows wHere the only photographers happened to be Sydney and myself. Usually, she’s not a fan of it just being us whereas I have the opposite feeling, but it seemed this time she wasn’t nearly as bothered by the lack of other photographers as usual. The lighting however for The Native Howl still wasn’t great but we did what we could. I’ve since learned that Sydney isn’t a fan of black and white photography which was the editing method I needed to use in order to give the photos a decent look.

On a side note, the black and white photos reminds me of a story when Sydney was about four. She asked me one day when the world became color, and I was more than a little confused by this question. After trying to get more to the heart of her pondering, I discovered that in her mind, since older photos were all black and white, the same must have been true of the world itself. I assured her that the world had always been color and there was never a point in record history where it didn’t exist.

Sydney did enjoy The Native Howl and even met one of the members later in the evening as we were leaving, but that honestly wasn’t the high point for her. She really wanted to be able to get pictures of Zakk Wylde, something that is on her “bucket list.” I know she was more than impressed by his performance and had several questions afterwards.

Since she is familiar with some of Black Sabbath’s songs, she asked me if the songs seemed longer than they usually are in the original and I told her that in some cases they are slightly longer. The big thing however was just was curious if I could play guitar behind my head like Zakk. I told her that this is something I absolutely cannot do, and I know that she was very impressed seeing him perform this way. For Sydney, finally getting the chance to get into the photo pit and get some shots of Zakk was a great way to end the year, and I’m certain she’d be more than happy to do it again.

Comments