Growing up listening to Lights, I wouldn't imagine being given the opportunity to photograph one of my favourite artists.
I'm about 8 years old, driving through the United States to compete at one of my biggest baton twirling competitions (yeah I wasn't the coolest kid). We were just about to arrive at the University of Notre Dame, my sister was playing two artists she had found through LimeWire in the glory days of online music. Looking up to her, three years older than me, I started to hear one of the first artists who I would grow to love still to this day.
Recently, I had signed up for the artists' pre-sale. I ran to the bathroom during class just to buy tickets right at 10am, the time they went on sale. I sat on the toilet at my university on my phone, all so I could manage two tickets to that same artist I've been listening to through that car ride through the States as a kid, waiting for the bus in middle and high school, the one who got me through my first year of university, and who's album I ran out to buy on it's release date at my local record shop.
This was the same record I had bought a few months back, and was now its own headlining tour. In the beginning of February of 2018, I received an email very late at night. The manger of that artist had emailed me saying she loved my photography, and granted me a media pass to photograph for Lights on March 1st.
I've had my fair share of concert experience, all of which I have been so grateful to have had the opportunity to combine three of my greatest passions, photography, music and writing. This concert was a big deal for me. I got to experience a performance that felt so intimate to me. The woman behind the music that got me through years of growing up, working through mental health issues, experiencing loss, finding love, and even seemed to see it through all this to uplift me to the better times.
The nice thing about being a fan since the beginning is that there is no other feeling like hearing those old favourite songs, even alongside a tour for an artists newest album. The surprise of the song from six years back almost feels like the artist remembers that time in grade ten, standing by the bus stop thinking you weren't going to make it to be twenty-one.
In the We Were Here Tour, Lights puts on a lively, pop-rock performance that has the audience screaming lyrics for two and a half hours. Her harmonious moments of the gentle acoustic sets give a warm mellow feeling to some normally upbeat synth music that you didn't know you could love that much more. You can see her in all her Skydiving glory (pun intended) on tour until April 7th, 2018.
All photos curtsey of Subflume, Melisssa Sorokolit
Tour Poster curtsey of Lightalot on reddit.com