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03/02/2020

Through the Eyes of a Child: Skillet

By SYDNEY AND MIKE LEWIS // Seven year-old Sydney Lewis's adventures with Skillet. Plus a new video from her.

If you’ve been following my daughter Sydney’s adventures at my side in the photo pit, you’ve undoubtedly noticed that she also has her own YouTube channel. While she really had ambitions of doing what other children on the site were doing, playing with toys and occasionally reviewing toys, she and I had to sit down and have a serious talk about the direction she was going. I pointed out that every child was doing exactly the same thing and the reality was to get anywhere, to gain those precious followers and clicks, she needed to do something different.

It took a lot of convincing but eventually I managed to get her to understand that the best path to follow was continuing to focus on photography and not just hers, but mine as well. However even with her being on board, she’s been very against shooting certain things. She’s still in that mindset of “let’s do a video about my new LOL.” Finally, I told her that whatever show I could get her approved for, she was going to shoot.

That brings us to Skillet and initially Sydney wasn’t interested despite having been approved to shoot the show but as the case often is, she wanted to hear a sampling of their music. Her introduction was the song “Feel Invincible” and she was immediately hooked. Any apprehension she had was gone and she shifted her focus, asking every day how many more days until the show.

Now, given my deep love of black metal, some would assume that Skillet would be completely opposite of what I’d normally attend but just because I may have an affinity for some of metals darkest music it doesn’t mean that I dislike other types of music and Skillet may be categorized as a Christian rock/metal band but they aren’t as blatant about it lyrically as what some others are. Instead from what I’ve heard, they have lyrics with a positive message that delves into spiritual territory without adding a denomination to it. I also felt that unlike some other bands Sydney has been to with me, I wasn’t going to need to be concerned about profanity or other negative things.

Sydney enjoyed the opening two bands, Ledger and From Ashes to New, but she was really there to see Skillet. I did notice that she had a bit of recognition from Matt Brandyberry, one of the vocalists of From Ashes to New who I noticed stopped very briefly at one point, smiled and waved at her. Seth Morrison also stopped at the edge of the stage and posed for her. If it isn’t someone on stage, it’s the staff at the Roseland who are paying attention and have always been great with her. Also, and I didn’t notice it, but she apparently got a high five from someone at the barricade watching the show. Needless to say, she’s getting noticed but then again, such a little photographer in the pit is very, very rare.

Skillet also proved to be slightly different than the past shows she has been involved with. We had to submit all of the photos to management prior to posting any of them, at least those of Skillet, but I let them know that she was only seven and she’d only photographed six shows to date. All of her photos were approved and while there are only seven of them, she’s doing a little better. She still has more shows on the horizon as well as more videos so there’s more to see from Sydney in the very near future.

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