Concert Photography

2024 WOODSTOCK TRUCK SHOW

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If you’ve been following me for awhile then you know about the Woodstock Truck Show. This year was the 10th anniversary and for the first time it was 2 days! Sadly, for me, Friday I couldn’t make it out because of work so I missed out on my good friend Aaron Allen and his wife Aimee and their amazing bandmates as well as Danielle Bourjeaurd and headliners The Road Hammers. From the video’s I’ve seen and what I’ve heard from people who where there it was a fantastic night!

Saturday, Day 2, it was game on! I was charged up and ready to go.. woke up excited and looked out the window .. Rain.. lots of rain.. grey skies, thunder, lightning… my heart sunk. Thankfully after looking at the weather app it was showing the rain would stop just before the show was scheduled to start. What is the Woodstock Truck Show? well, it’s a festival the has a bunch of big trucks, we’re talking semi-trucks all waxed and shined up on display and there is a big competition for the nicest truck.

why trucks?
well, Scott Verbruggen, the man of the hour who created the truck show and works tirelessly to put it on, he comes from the Trucking world, his family has a trucking business and all his connections are in trucking, so why not have this amazing event to showcase all the trucks and the people who drive them and supply us with food, goods, fuel etc…


What is the purpose of the the truck show?
This incredible event raises a lot of money for some incredible causes: The Special Olympics Woodstock as well as Woodstock and District Developmental Services (WDDS) ALL PROCEEDS go back into the community. This event can’t happen without all the sponsors who donate funds to make this all come together, sponsors like: Brandt, Contrans, Skillex Inc., J. Verbruggen Trucking LTD., Vision Truck Group, MACK, Rhino Truck Lube Centers, Laurel Steel, KTC, Truck Centric, Orkin, Driverette, Titan Tarp and more! in the past 10 years the show and calendar comp has raised over $150,000 for these charities which is incredible!

Back you Saturday! The line-up was stacked! opening the show was Jenna Kayln (stage name) who you might have seen blow up on TikTok with her Female perspective version of Zack Bryan’s “ Something In The Orange “. For those who don’t know.. Jenna is a Woodstonian (from Woodstock). Jenna played a few covers and a few of her original songs and of course, her version of Something In The Orange.

Deborah Lynn Music hit the stage all the way from Stirling Ontario she has worked Aaron Allen writing music and Aaron has produced some of her songs as well, she has opened for Jade Eagleson and will be opening for Tyler Joe Miller very soon. What an outstanding performance Deborah gave us all, took right off into her set and looked so comfortable on stage.

Colt McLauchlin This guy came out of no where, I hadn’t heard his music before to be honest, I listened to a song or two before the show and was impressed, really wanted to see what he had live and he did not disappoint! All smiles up on that stage singing his heart out for the crowd, song after song a flawless performance. Colt comes from just outside of Petrolia Ontario, raised on a farm so you know country music is in his veins. Colt has performed on some very well known Nashville stages such as: Margaritaville, Rippy’s, Legends, Tootsies, Dierks Bentleys Whiskey Row and even Alan Jackson’s Bar.

Nate Haller .. I’m guessing this guy needs no introduction.. you know.. Nate Haller.. you’ve heard his songs on the radio, born and raised right down the highway in Waterloo Ontario, Canada! If Nate looks familiar and you can’t quite place it, well it’s probably from when he spent a few years in another band I’m sure you know.. a brother and sister combo known as THE REKLAWS. Nate broke out on his own writing hit after hit, his first big song ( one of my personal favs) Lightning In A Bottle. He’s played to a sold out crowd at the Calgary Stampede and Budweiser Stage in Toronto. Nate put on one heck of a show in Woodstock and had a fun time while doing so, even trading hats with a fan, realizing quickly that hat was soaked because of the warm weather lol.

Madeline Merlo - Headliner for the night! Madeline does not need an introduction either, she’s very well known, originally from Maple Ridge, British Columbia and now resides in Nashville. You know her songs, they’ve been all over the radio: Champagne Night, Dear Me, Tim + Faith, Makeup, Neon Love, Motel Flamingo, War Paint and many more. Madeline even did backing vocals on Cole Swindell’s Single “ She Had Me at Heads Carolina “. Such a great night ending off with Madeline under the stars in Woodstock listening to her and her band rock out bringing endless smiles to everyone in attendance.

HUGE THANK YOU! goes out to the Woodstock Truck Show, all the Sponsors, the volountee’s, the vendors, Scott and his team for bringing all this together and their endless hard work on bringing something so incredible to little Woodstock and of course all the bands who write these songs and come out to perform. I look forward to this event every single year… Lets get to the concert photos!

JENNA KAYLN

DEBORAH LYNN MUSIC

COLT McLAUCHLIN

NATE HALLER

MADELINE MERLO

© 2024 all images subject to Copy-write Kevin Vyse Photography

Where have I been?

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Soooo…… Kevin, where have you been?

Honestly, I’ve been in the same place, sort of. This blog took a nose dive because when I looked at the analytics Squarespace provides me, I noticed that no one was reading it; actually, no one was even visiting my website. Part of that is because I left it in limbo. I never updated it, I stopped writing blogs, I actually almost deleted it all together because it just seemed like I was paying for something I wasn’t using and no one was visiting. I realized I had not quite set it up right and I didn’t have any links to it via Google like I should have so it wasn’t receiving traffic like it should.

Kevin… Is your website receiving traffic now?, are people reading your blog?

* Shrug * I seriously couldn’t tell you. What I've learned being a photographer in these crazy social media times is… it doesn’t matter. Everyone is a “Photographer” everyone has a website and competing for “likes” and followers is draining and over time it will beat you down so damn much you may even want to completely walk away from photography because you feel like a failure. That was me! I watched people start photography years after me, get way more successful, end up with thousands of followers of socials and end up with a ton of opportunities that I wished I had and that made me feel like I was a failure and I should just give up. I stepped away from doing photos for people for a bit, but I kept shooting, just things for myself and slowly my love for it all came back. Here’s where we are today.

For those of you, if there are any of you, who have followed along the entire time, Might have noticed that my photography kind of changed. A lot of the conventional portraits disappeared, The Family Portraits disappeared, all the model work went away…. this is because I took a 5 year long dive into the music industry. Photographing live music is where I started in photography years ago at The Embassy Hotel in London Ontario, Canada. In those days you could just walk into a show with a camera and no one would care at all.. no applying for shows, now getting escorted around, very different from today.
So 5 years of my life dedicated to doing live music photography and band portraits, photographing Single Release Images for bands and website work, Promo work and it was incredible. Guess what happened next? after 5 years of busting my a** off, staying out till 11pm then driving home, going to bed and getting up at 5am for work…. the world broke down because of a virus that was played up 1000x worse than it was… maybe you remember that? you know.. the reason why the world is completely destroyed now and almost impossible to afford.. yeah… After that happened, it seemed like the music industry took a step back, re-evaluated the need for 10 or more photographers to be at shows and made some changes. Can’t say for sure that’s what happened, but I was getting into a lot of shows before, and now it’s very challenging to get in, almost like starting over from the beginning again, like those 5 years had zero merit. Recently, I decided that battling it out to try and get into concerts which I wouldn’t be paid to photograph was not a smart business plan and I have stepped back. Focus shifted from Live concert work into working more one on one with musicians to create their website imagery, Press Kits, Single Release work etc… This is where we are at…

Kevin… Are you still photographing other things though like engagements, Families, Couples etc…. ?

Oh hell yes! of course! I know you haven’t seen those kinds of images on socials because I wasn’t focusing on those, but I also wasn’t getting any requests for those bookings. So to clarify, YES! please reach out through my Contact Form here on the site and get booking.

So i’m going to leave you with some of the work I have been doing over the last 5 years with musicians .. most of these are Country Bands because honestly.. the rock bands don’t seem to want to be photographed or make it very challenging to be able to photograph them and Country, they love it! such a wicked family, they understand how important a photography is tied in with their music. I make a face for their music and I try really hard to match the image with the mood of the song and the title or the story behind the songs… that’s what gets me excited.

I'M BACK!!!!

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If you don’t want to read everything below, that’s ok, images are at the end of the post.

Here we go! The blog is back…. Honestly, I really missed writing these blogs, even though my website really doesn’t get any traffic and no one really reads this stuff.

What to Expect:

Well…. not quite sure.. I’m sure you’re going to see a lot more Music stuff because that has been a huge focus for me over the past 5 years, but I will say, the music world has changed, from my perspective at least, since the world shut down. Rumour had it that Live Nation could possible be axing freelance photographers or at least limiting their access to shows… after the stupid C19 scandal, I have not been able to land one concert through them, when before, I was getting approved for almost every show I applied to.. maybe it was all just a coincidence, who knows. I have also noticed that Venues I was constantly getting approved for also fell off and stopped responding to email.. such is life.. C19 changed the world in a way I never thought would be possible, but here we are.

I am very thankful, however, for wicked venues and festivals that are holding true and still granting access to those who love live music and who work their asses off to capture the live acts the best they can and provide quality work.. festivals like ROCK THE PARK in London, Ontario. Rock The Park has been a staple in my life, not just as a photographer, it actually took me 6 years of hard work and writing emails year after year to gain access, and it finally happened 6 years ago, but it also was/is a staple for me as a fan of live music.. I’ve been going to RTP for as long as I can remember. Harris Park is where Rock The Park is held, it’s a lovely little park on the outskirts of downtown London tucked away beside the Thames River and amongst some trees and tall apartment buildings. This festival has been working their asses off to bring in HUGE and amazing bands for years. If you go check out their website www.rockthepark.ca you can see the incredible bands they have brought through year after year.. big acts like: Ice Cube, Mumford & Sons, The Glorious Sons, Ludacris, JaRule, The Tragically Hip, Journey, Our Lady Peace, Alice Cooper, and many many more… This years line up is wild as well: Nickelback, The Glorious Sons, Tea Party, Tyler Childers, NAS, Lil Jon, Neil Young with Crazy Horse and more! I am very thankful to be accepted to Photograph this event, not as an official photographer but as my own outlet and lover of live music.

This post will be to focus on Last years ROCK THE PARK. Let me tell you, it was a wild time, it always is! let me first start out by saying, the people who put RTP together work so hard.. its months of gruelling work to get these bands in, working schedules and budgets, getting a huge amount of volunteers together to make it all come together.

2023 Line up was pretty stacked:

Ludacris, Ja Rule, Cypress Hill, Papa Roach, Mumford & Sons, Vance Joy, Volbeat, Halestrom, Chingy, Billy Talent, Alexisonfire, Silverstein, The Trews, The Dirt Nil, T.I., Bahamas, Default, Ashanti, MYA. I have to let you know.. I did NOT get to attend all of it which made me so upset because the night I really want, the bands I grew up going to see and listening to, the main night my heart lived for I had to miss due to car trouble…. it killed me, and that night was Billy Talent, Alexisonfire, Silverstein, The Dirt Nil. I spent months pumped to have them on the bill and get to photograph them after all these years and I missed out.
None the less, the nights I did get to photograph some of it and it was a blast as always. There’s something about being out in that hot July sun sweating to death, legs shaking from the long days and all the squats you end up doing trying to stay out of fans line of sight and get good angles that just makes life feel so damn good. Those moments I’m in “The Pit” as well call it ( That area between the fans and the stage where security is ) is when I feel like a really full time photographer, just working hard to get those shots and make the bands look great on stage, capturing the emotion, the movement, waiting for the right moment to get that shot that makes you smile when you know you’ve captured it…. accomplished, amazed, and living in the moment.. that’s what it’s all about.

BAHAMAS

MUMFORD & SONS

THE TREWS

VANCE JOY