2023-10-28 – The Sand Dollar Lounge, Las Vegas NV. One of the bands that I’ve been following since moving to Las Vegas has been the Rayford Brothers. First time I went to the Sand Dollar with OHD baseman, Craig Roy, I first saw them and I’ve been trying to catch their rockabilly shows whenever they’re in town. I had heard that they put on a special show for Halloween featuring the “Batband,” so this year I had to come out and check it out. I’m not a get in costume guy, except for my daily wear that usually includes my backwards cap that makes it look like a beret. Anyway, almost everyone at Sand Dollar was dressed up in costume. Understandably, many of the costumes were “Batman” themed, with a Riddler and Joker and Batgirl and Catwoman in the crowd. I caught a rowdy group from Hogworst hanging outside in a courtyard behind Sand Dollar. Inside the music had already started when I got there with the Rayford Brothers playing their classics. Then after taking a break, they came out a bit before midnight, in costume, as the Batband and rocked the rest of the night away, well, at least until 2AM.

Between the band in costume and all of the revelers, there was a lot to shoot with my Sony A7c. I did some shooting with my iPhone 13 Max, but most of the night was with the Sony. I’m disappointed that my kit and wide-angle lenses are fixed-length and have no zoom function. Most of the night I shot from across the room using my Tamron 28-200. I really miss the kit lens that came with my Olympus that was small (retractable) and offered some zoom function. Most of the video I shot with the Sony and a few LIVE shots (3 second video) on my iPhone. A lot of the video I shot shows how much the auto-stabilization is working with iPhone video and missing on the Sony. The real challenge at these shows is getting autofocus to work in these very low light conditions with everyone dancing. I’m still working on getting these kinds of shots without using flash or non-environmental lights. Enjoy.