Heavy Metal Hair Bands

One of my favorite things to photograph back in the day was hair bands. Monsters of Rock in 1988 was my first concert I photographed at the former Mile High Stadium in Denver, Colo. Van Halen headlined the show.

Another band to perform was Metallica who was up and coming then. They had a specific contract to photograph their last three songs. The band wanted to look as grungy as possible which would be toward the end of their set.

Ozzy Osbourne was a fun gig to shoot in which it was raining at Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Morrison, Colo. Ozzy dowsed himself with a bucket of water after the first song. And with a chance of electrocuting himself it didn’t seem to bother Ozzy.

I photographed the Rolling Stones in 1994 at Mile High Stadium getting a credential through a small newspaper in Vail, Colo. The paper ran a double page spread on my photos and ended up losing the negatives.

A majority of the images posted here were taken surprisingly with a Nikon 70-210 f4 zoom lens and F3 camera. A f2.8 zoom lens wasn’t made back then and you did the best with what you had and called it good. When working these images I can see how far digital has now surpassed film days. In my opinion when digital cameras reached the 8 million megapixel count I believe digital then equaled film. Now that I use a camera with a 16 MP sensor I can’t image shooting with anything less.

Pete Townshend of the Who.

Eddie Van Halen looks at Sammy Hagar while headlining the Monsters of Rock at the fomer Mile High Stadium.

Roger Daltrey lead singer for the Who belts out the lyrics to a song at Folsom Field in Boulder, Colo.

Lead vocals Brian Johnson from AC/DC.