I was a concert hound in the 70s. My hometown was about thirty miles north of Pittsburgh and as soon as my friends started driving, we’d all pile in a car and drive down to the city to see some band. My first concert ever was The Moody Blues in 1974 (I think it was 1974) at the Pittsburgh Civic Arena. Then when I moved to the city late in 1975 to go to art school, it was just a bus ride down the hill to the arena, or out to The Syria Mosque, to catch the band of the day. Pittsburgh hosted a lot of concerts back then. It was a rock and roll city to be sure.

Back in art school I was shooting with a small Canon TX 35-mm with a fixed 50-mm lens. Getting any images in a stadium that held 14,000 people was challenging. Many of the concerts were general seating, so if I got there early enough, I could get to the boards between the professional photographers in the pit and the first row of the audience.

I processed some of the slides myself in the school darkroom and sent the ones I shot with Kodachrome out to the lab.

Shooting from the audience was not easy, probably still isn’t. My images were never sharp, but many of them had a moody, arty, quality about them. Now they serve as a piece of nostalgia for me, a kind of digital scrapbook.

None of these images have been published before now. They were all tucked away in a box in storage.

If you are interested in purchasing, know that while the digital image is medium sized (approximately 10×14 inches) and is meant to live as a digital image. I have no idea what size they would print to. I would think that smaller than 10×14 would be better and they are priced accordingly.

I am just starting to add these images to the site. It will be a slow process so come back every now and then to see what’s new!

You can find the gallery in the drop down menu in the navigation bar: Vintage Concert Photos 1970s