When you listen to Mindy’s music, you get this impression that she’s probably one of the most creative, hilarious, fun, and sincere people that you’d ever meet. Well, if you get that impression, you’re right on.

Meet, Mindy Gledhill.

It was a great honor to welcome Peter Breinholt and Ryan Innes to my studio yesterday.

I’d never met Peter before, but have wanted to for such a long time. He’s been making great music and entertaining thousands of happy music goers around Utah for 15 years. That’s remarkable. His music is cheerful and thoughtful and I hardly know anyone around here that doesn’t have a Peter Breinholt story, something that has to do with going to one of his concerts or making out to his music (that’s the story Mindy Gledhill tells). Please meet the authentic, good, genuine and kind Peter Breinholt:

Website: www.PeterBreinholt.com

And then there’s Ryan Innes. When he sings, all the knees of standing girls will buckle and those same girls will start to see stars. If I could sing like anyone, it would be like Ryan Innes.

Website: www.reverbnation.com/ryaninnes

You can hear Peter and Ryan this Friday, May 4, at the Rooftop Concert for our first show in this year’s fantastic season.

We’re gearing up for another great year of music in Provo and kicking it off Peter Breinholt with Ryan Innes. See the whole season’s lineup on the Rooftop Concert website.

Fictionist, at Velour on January 13, 2012.

Around our house, we love Mindy Gledhill’s CD’s, but there’s something that’s even better, and that’s hearing her performing live. Last week she played at Velour, and so, goosebumps.

Her new Christmas album is available here as well as her other music. Mindy is the real deal.

Fun fact – One of Mindy’s songs on YouTube recently reached over 1 million views. You can see it here. 1 million. Wowza.

Tally Hall, photographed at Velour Live Music Gallery. If you haven’t been there before and you live within 100 miles, what, I ask you, are you waiting for? Go to Velour. It’s awesome.

Fictionist announced recently that they’ve been signed to Atlantic Records. That’s fantastic news, and most likely it will mean lots more people will hear about this amazing band.

Stu Maxfield

Robbie Connely

These photographs were taken at Velour on September 21, 2001 at their celebration concert in Provo, UT. It was a packed house and the show sold out. Jed Wells saw me and asked if I was going to fight my way through to get some pictures. Turns out, I didn’t need to fight or push at all. I found an open spot on the side of the stage and got all the pictures I wanted.

September’s Rooftop Concert brought to you by C. Jane was just down-right nuts. In the past we’ve had as many as 2,500 people come see a free show on the Provo Town Square parking terrace. But at this last concert, we had 4,000 people there.

You might be asking how do we know we had that many people? Well, we’ve always wanted to quantify the numbers, so, for the past couple of concerts we have had people stationed at the three entrances with those little number clickers and they count everyone that comes in. Now we know how many people show up. And you might also be asking, who is “we”. There are four co-founders of the Rooftop Concert Series (C. Jane, Mindy Gledhill, Sarah Wiley, and me) plus a good number of very enthusiastic volunteers that help make sure everything goes off without a hitch.

Last year we had two concerts, this year we’ll have six. There’s one more concert this year. That’s in October. But hold your horses. I’m getting ahead of myself. First I want to show you how things played out last Friday, September 2. Here are some pictures that show the crowd, the warm up act, The Neighbors, and our opening band, The Vibrant Sound. The pictures of our headliner, Imagine Dragons, will be in a separate post.

Sound check, before anyone has arrived

Come early and sleep on concrete. Ahhhhh, comfy.

"All My Friends Are Monsters" An art installation from Trevor Christensen

Tough guys. We're so glad they are there.

Earnest concert-goer

Arial, faithful volunteer and collector of wearable pencils

The crowd, gathering. See if you can pick out Trevor Christensen.

Amy Hackworth - C. Jane

Dustin Christensen and genius music producer Scott Wiley

Local music supporter

Friend of rock and roll and hipster glasses

The warm-up act, The Neighbors.

Rachel, from the Neighbors

Rachel Kaiser - The Neighbors

Rachel Kaiser - The Neighbors

Adam Kaiser - The Neighbors

You can tell some girls are involved in putting this on because they care about stuff like hanging latterns.

Latterns are cool

Stuart Maxfield, a Rooptop perfomer alumn.

Cory Fox, owner of Velour Live Music Gallery

And now, the opening act, The Vibrant Sound.

The Vibrant Sound

The Vibrant Sound

The Vibrant Sound

The Vibrant Sound

If any of you know this girl tell her I want to photograph her wedding

The Vibrant Sound

Whoop and holler for free concerts and the Vibrant Sound! Yaaaaa!

The Vibrant Sound

The Vibrant Sound

Mindy Gledhill, pregnant, and radiant as ever, outside my office. (And outside her office. She’s got a cute little place downtown Provo, too.)

Mindy Gledhill

We had a meeting last night for the Rooftop Concert series. After making plans for the next show we walked out on the sidewalk and it was that perfect time of night. That time of night when the air is cooler and the west side of town is lit up, all gold. It smells different, too, and when you were a kid, this is the time of night you’d go door to door and gather your friends to play kick the can.

And if you’re a photographer, this is the time of night when you thank your lucky stars Mindy Gledhill will stand on the sidewalk for a minute or two and let you take her picture. Mindy is so jubilant and fun, and hardly stood still. I’ve got those pictures, too. But it turns out, for me, this is the keeper.

In case you were not among the 2,500 people that came to our last rooftop concert, let me show you some pictures and give you a taste of what it was like. And if you’re going to be anywhere near Provo on the first Friday of the month in August, September and October, I encourage you to come dip your toe in that sweet, sweet music pool that is the Rooftop Concert Series. The thing about music is when it hits you, it feels good.

Sarah Sample

Libbie Linton

Early arrivals at the rooftop

Cherrie Call

Sam Payne

Ahhh...., cute

Want to know who's running the show? Sarah. That's who.

Rooftop Concerts presented by C. Jane

Andy from Slab Pizza and the guy who came up with the Rooftop idea

When Sarah Sample sings, get ready to melt away

Paul Jacobsen and Sarah

There's trouble brewing here. You can just feel it.

The Mayor gives away some Sarah Sample CD's

I'm probably the mayor's best friend, and doesn't C. Jane look great.

Ryan Tanner

Lovebirds

Encore!

Goodnight everybody

Now that's how you have an outdoor concert

What I want is another afternoon like the one I had yesterday when Sarah Sample came to the studio. When she arrived I asked her to sit for a bit so I could ask her some questions and once we started talking I wanted to talk all afternoon. But hey, Sarah’s busy, so we left the studio and walked a few blocks around Provo. I’d stop sometimes and say, stand here, look this way, and on and on like that while I took pictures trying to pay particular attention to those times when she’d raise up that right shoulder or close her eyes on the high notes. Sarah Sample is groovy and laid back and when she plays some chords on that guitar, then sways, even the way she sways is lovely.

Want to see such things first-hand? Then you won’t want to miss our Rooftop Concert this Friday at 8pm. Bring a blanket and a chair but make sure it’s one of those low to the ground chairs, because Sarah’s voice just might knock you out of it, and I don’t want you to get injured when you hit the ground. I care about your fragile hip.

Here’s where you can listen and buy Sarah’s album and she’ll also be selling them at the concert tomorrow night.

And now enjoy this.

On Friday, May 6, we kicked off the first Rooftop Concert of the summer. One down, five more to go. (Check out the line-up on the website: www.rooftopconcertseries.com)

April’s been a pretty chilly month around these parts but on Friday, nothing but sunshine and warm weather. Honestly, this concert couldn’t have come on a better day. And for me, things lined up even more perfectly because my whole family was in town. That never happens. I’ve got two brothers and two sisters. Jordan and Kristi live in Virginia (they work in the same hospital!) Jeremy lives in San Diego, Jenni lives in St. George and my parents have been in China for the last year. And everyone’s busy and it’s hard to get together. I just don’t even know the last time it happened. I probably had hair, last time it happened. But it happened this week. Jenni got her Ph.D. in nursing so everyone was in Salt Lake on Thursday to celebrate the happy and significant occasion.

Now, at this point, you might be wondering, now what does this have to do with the Rooftop Concert Series and Fictionist? Well, since the whole family was in town, we all got to go to the rooftop concert together. You know what they say–the family that rocks together….I don’t know how to finish that.

Photo by Trevor Christensen

The Rooftop Concert: Emily Brown warmed things up and she’s a girl you ought to know. Check out her website and buy her CD.

Then Paul Jacobsen and the Madison Arm (Pat Campbell, Ryan Tanner, Scott Wiley, Paul Jacobsen) wowed everyone. At our house, we’ve been listening to Paul’s CD for the past couple of weeks non-stop so we could sing along. So that’s what we did.

Then Fictionist. And if you haven’t already heard (because you’ve been in a cryogenic freeze or some such thing) Fictionist are in a contest to be on the cover of Rolling Stone and you could help put them there. Just go here and rate them five stars. We’re lucky to have them at the Rooftop Concert before things really start to heat up for them.

Paul Jacobsen and the Madison Arm

Mayor John Curtis gives away a Fictionist CD, CJane charms the crowd.

The young kids love the rock and roll

1,500 people came to see Fictionist and Paul Jacobsen

Additional Fictionist pictures from Friday night in a two minute slideshow can be seen here.

Friday night really was magic. I loved the concert and I loved hanging out with the family. Oh, sure it was late after the concert, but that didn’t stop us from going back to my house, busting out the guitars, and having a concert of our own until 2 am. Even my mom stayed up for that.

We love Molly and Vic.

Molly and Vic, photographed at their home in Park City

Lee Benson wrote an article in the Deseret News about Molly and Vic’s story and titled it “Out of Tragedy arises a will to live and to pass that hope on to others”.

Here’s the story. Molly and Vic had a beautiful daughter. A real looker. A shining star. Lucy was two years old when she choked on an apple and passed away in the hospital three days later.

So Molly and Vic turned their grief toward helping others and started a blog called A Good Grief. It’s a place where others who have lost children can be supported. And now, A Good Grief Foundation is hosting its first annual benefit concert. All proceeds go directly to headstones for children who have passed on. Join them for an evening of incredible entertainment with some of Utah’s top performers, featuring singer/songwriter Cherie Call. Tickets are selling fast.

Concert: Days of Plenty Benefit Concert
When: March 17, 2011
Time: 7:30PM
Where: Historic Murray Theatre (4969 S. State Salt Lake City)
Admission: $10

Get tickets here.

Meet The North 17th Street band.

Back in 2008 when I did the very first 30 Strangers project, I asked asked Willie if he would write a song to go along with the project. I envisioned and event where the images would be shown and Willie would perform the song in public. Well, the song got written, but the event never took place. Now, in Grand Junction Colorado, Willie and his wife Sally and their neighbor John are The North 17th Street Band. And here’s the song written exclusively for the 30 Strangers project.

You can buy their album here. That’s what a smart person would do.

Here’s a band I love: The Head and the Heart. They are from Seattle.  That’s where I saw them first.  Then last month fortune shined on Provo and they came to town, played at Velour.

Here is Jon Russell from the Head and the Heart, photographed outside Velour on the night of their show.

If you’d like to see some photographs from their show, you can watch this two minute slideshow. Then go buy their CD. These guys are the real deal.

Provo Utah, hold your head up high. Last Friday night something beautiful happened and the 1,000 people that showed up left happy and feeling good, good.

But maybe we should start at the beginning.

In February or March of this year, everyone’s favorite blogger, Courtney Kendrick asked me if I wanted to be part of a committee of folks interested in making Provo a better place. I’ll be honest with you, I was just happy to go along with any plan that included me getting to hang out more with Courtney. Count me in, I said. We had a couple meetings and talked about ways to bring people to downtown more often. Get them milling about, get them going to the downtown restaurants, get them to be part of this great town.

So then Andy thought it might be a good idea to have some concerts. What if we had them on a rooftop, he said. Great idea we all said. A rooftop. What fun! So Sarah Wiley and I took a little field trip and scouted out some obvious options. One of the things that played so well in our favor is that Richard Gregory from the Provo Town Square was already on the same page as us and had in fact, dreamed up something similar to what we were thinking and graciously offered his property as a location. Richard Gregory, we thank you.

But back to the story. We had an idea and we had a location. So we kept having meetings. We met at my office and we met at Mindy’s office. And for a while, that’s about all we did was talk. Concerts take money and they take a lot of work. Then, two things happened that changed this from an idea to an idea that would actually get done. First of all, Courtney told us she would sponsor the concerts.  And by sponsor, she meant cha-ching, and by cha-ching, she meant put up the money. Wowza. That was huge. And generous. The next thing that happened is that Sarah Wiley, with four kids and a full time job, took the bull by the horns and started making assignments and telling us all what to do. Anyone that came to our first two concerts should know that without Courtney and Sarah, this would not have happened. Another thing that was essential was that Mindy Gledhill put on a CD release concert and donated all the proceeds from ticket sales (a nearly sold-out show at the Covey Center) to our concert series. See, Courtney, Mindy and Sarah are true champs.

So now we’ve got some dough and a location. Next item, put on a damn show.

We lined up Benton Paul and Nic Day and back in September, had our first rooftop concert. Man, that felt great to have talked for so long, and then have something actually happen. Good crowd, good times.

Oh, but then…

But then on Friday, for our second concert, we lined up the Lower Lights. We already knew we’d have a big crowd. Their CD had just been released and people were talking. Folks in the Lower Lights had heard of friends driving from all over the country to come to the show. Everything was lining up just right.

And so, Friday night could not have been more magical. We packed 1,000 people or more on the top of the Central Bank parking lot on one of the most gorgeous nights in October history. You didn’t need a jacket but you could benefit from snuggling close to someone you love. That’s what I did.

Now, I’ve only lived in Provo 5 years, but I can’t imagine this town has seen very many concerts that were better than what we got last Friday night under the stars. Carrie Underwood at the Stadium of Fire? You’ve got to be kidding me.

If you missed the show, don’t cry too hard. You can still get the Lower Lights CD, and as far as the rooftop concerts go, this is just the beginning. We’ll have some more next year. After all, there’s a group of us that care about making Provo a better place than it already is. If you live in Provo and want to be a part of something great, let me know and we can use you for next year’s concert series.

And now, the Lower Lights.

After the show celebration

Scott Wiley, the man behind the Lower Lights

Sarah Wiley, and one reason there is a concert series

The Rooftop Concert committee

Don’t forget, the Lower Lights play a free show today, October 1st at 8pm on the roof of the Central Bank parking lot in Provo and sponsored by Cjane. The address is 100 North and 100 West. Libbie Linton will also perform. It’s going to be great and I’ve been looking forward to this for a long time. Here are some pictures from a recent Lower Lights rehearsal.

…..

In other news, October is shaping up to be a busy month and it’s only just started. I have twenty-six portrait sessions scheduled and four weddings. Ten of those sessions are in Denver. I had only planned on doing six there, but added four additional sessions to accommodate requests.

In August I went to New York to photograph the BlogHer convention and will go to San Francisco next week to photograph another one of their conventions. It’s a much smaller affair this time, so I won’t get to take Trevor along, like last time. Don’t worry Trevor. We’ll shoot it again together next year in San Diego.

A couple days ago I took down the 30 Strangers exhibit that had been at the Provo Library for the month of September. Two pieces from last year and two from this year will be part of an exhibit at BYU this month. I already mentioned the exhibit on my blog, here, and will probably mention it again as the day of the opening (October 14th, gets a little closer). In conjunction with the exhibit, I gave a lecture at the library last week about portrait photography and how to improve your own pictures. If I get around to it, I’d like to whip up some notes I used and write a post on what was said. This comes as a suggestion from Marta.

Earlier this week I was at WedSmith as the official photographer. Hilary at Alta Moda knows how to plan an event. It was fantastic and I’m really happy to have been a part of it. I’ll post some of the pictures soon, but in the mean time, I just wanted to mention that I got to meet Lara Casey and I dig that lady. She is so impressive. Meeting her made my whole month.

So, here we go. October. Let the good times roll.

Here’s where I’ll be on Friday night (October 1st). It’s another Provo Rooftop Concert sponsored by CJane. I can’t wait. I’ve been listening to the Lower Lights new CD for a week strait and I can’t get enough.

Click on the image above to read more. Then, come to the concert. You’ll be glad you did.

Something cool for you to do tomorrow night, Friday, September 10th: Go to this free concert on the roof of the Central Bank parking garage in downtown Provo. It’s sponsored by everyone’s favorite blogger, CJane, and as long as you remember to wear a jacket (my weather widget said it’s going to be chilly) then this might be the best thing you do all September. (Now listen, if you are going to Paris this September, then let’s face it, that’s going to be way cooler than this concert. I’m not an idiot.)

There was lots of meetings and talking and ideas about this concert series and now it’s happening. So while there are only two for this year (the next one is in October and it will knock your socks off and clean in to the wash) we hope that next year we’ll have four or five. That’s why it’s a series, see.

Dude, free concert.

This wouldn’t be happening without Courtney’s generous sponsorship, Mindy’s fund-raiser, and without the go get’em-ness from Sarah Wiley. Three champs. Three cheers.

On the night of Mindy Gledhill’s CD release concert at the Covey Center in Provo, Utah, I went down early to photograph the sound check. Before crowds showed up, before the lights went down, before the band and Mindy got dressed up for the big show, before any of that took place, Mindy ran through the songs with her band and I got chills. Even seeing the sound check was fantastic. I sent a text to my wife who was going to come down for the show. I said, “You are going to love this concert.”

Mindy Gledhill has a new CD. I recommend you get it. You can do so on iTunes here or on her website.

Mindy Gledhill is the real deal.

Soundcheck:

Backstage, getting ready for the show:

Lisa Clark, Hailey Smith and Matt Mattson from the Thrillionaires

Courtney and Stephanie, the very capable master of cerimonies

And then the show: