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Rock Reads: No Cameras Allowed: My Career as an Outlaw Rock and Roll Photographer by Julian David Stone
Reviewed by Kevin Wierzbicki
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While cameras are generally still not allowed at live shows, members of the general public can today usually get a pretty good shot of the concert stage with their cell phone, and this goes on openly at every concert. Before cell phones were ubiquitous though, if you wanted to take concert photos you either had to have photographer credentials or sneak in a camera, and Stone became proficient at the latter. Here he presents an incredible array of shots he obtained surreptitiously with a smuggled-in 35mm camera. He hid the camera body in one sock and the lens in another; you may not want to know where the film was hidden! The presentation begins with shots of the Ramones from a 1983 concert and progresses chronologically from there; shots of the B-52's showing Cindy Wilson and Kate Pierson with their trademark bouffant hairdos, a cool double exposure of Big Country, a very elegant David Bowie and '80s darlings like Missing Persons, Berlin, Howard Jones and Katrina and the Waves. David Gilmour, Jerry Garcia, U2 and other big stars are present, as is Bruce Springsteen, which was one of the last shows Stone photographed. He had a camera malfunction during the Springsteen show, rendering all but two of 17 rolls of film unusable.
