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05/21/2022

Through the Eyes of a Child: Lacuna Coil and Apocalyptica at Crystal Ballroom

By MIKE LEWIS / PHOTOS BY SYDNEY LEWIS // The return of Sydney Lewis, now ten years old and a three year veteran of shooting photos of metal bands. Plus a video by Sydney and her dad.

Sydney Lewis, ten year-old daughter of OMN photographer Mike Lewis began shooting photos for OMN when she was seven.

Going into 2019 she was expecting to shoot more shows, but then COVID hit, and things were postponed, much longer than we thought. About a month into the “two weeks but curb the spread” she started asking when we were going to shoot again. I didn’t have an answer. This persisted for several weeks and still I had no answer. I think that at some point, Syndey just gave up hoping and in fact, the YouTube channel we had started for her transformed and became focused on video games.

It has taken a while, but she’s finally managed to get back into the photo pit once again although not nearly as soon as she would have liked. There were shows I didn’t try and get her approved for, some she was declined, and still another where she ended up getting sick just before the show. Sydney has reached the same point I have been at for some time. I don’t care who the band is, just let me go take some photos.

Lacuna Coil and Apocalyptica is Sydney’s first show back in over two years. Honestly, she had no idea who the bands even were and while I don’t think she cared, there have in fact been a few shows that she passed on just because she didn’t like the music. This also marks her first time ever shooting at the historic Crystal Ballroom, a venue that she has been at for a concert in the past but only to watch. She had been telling me for a while that she wanted to shoot a show at the Crystal because “it looks pretty.” I’ve also been contending with her telling me that her photos weren’t going to be good.

Because she hadn’t done any photography for a while. She apparently had forgotten that while she had done photos for about seven shows in just a little under a year, I had a few hundred that I had been a part of, and I felt even more concerned about if I still could get good photos.

While she’s getting better about voicing her opinions and giving her thoughts about various things, I still can’t get much out of her when it comes to shows. “They were good,” or “I liked them” is really about the extent of things. She “liked” Lacuna Coil and also thought that Apocalyptica was “good,” so much so that we had to hit the merch table before we left. But I know that she had fun, something that was evident when I turned to her at one point, and she had a big grin on her face.

Sydney has reached a point with how she carries herself at shows. She understands the rules of the photo pit, she tries to stay out of the way of the other photographers, she pays attention to the bouncers just in case something happens, and even one of the staff at the Crystal was impressed that he said something on our way out and was convinced she had been to many more shows than what the reality was.

Overall, I feel that Sydney did a decent job this time even after an unintended absence. She feels differently as you’ll see in the video. My apologies for the video on our end. I’m uncertain why it ended up glitching in places, but we’ll work on that for future videos. She has been in a pit a time or two since this so watched for more video reveals coming soon.

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