Last night, Regina Spektor and her band performed at United Palace Theatre. She treated her hometown audience to a preview of many tracks from her new album, What We Saw from the Cheap Seats, which will be released later this month.

The show opener was Only Son, a band led by Jack Dishel. A few photos in the gallery show when Jack joined Regina during her set to perform a song that they wrote together.

The full photo gallery can be found here.

I first photographed Regina in 2009 at Beacon Theatre. Photos from that show can be found here.

Last month, I had the pleasure of shooting a portrait session with singer-songwriter Gavin Degraw. It took place on an unseasonably warm February afternoon, which gave us the flexibility to do indoor and outdoor setups. Before arriving for the shoot in Williamsburg, I scouted some nearby locations to find some that would supply good looking backgrounds for the photos. I couldn’t believe how photogenic the neighborhood was! It seemed like every wall and doorway I saw had some character to it. In the end, we shot at two indoor and three outdoor locations, which provided some good variety to the photos.

Shortly after the shoot, it was announced that Gavin would be one of the competitors on this season of Dancing With The Stars, which premieres tonight on ABC. Set your DVR!

In the meantime, check out the full gallery of Gavin Degraw portraits here.

Tuesday night, Van Halen performed their first of two shows at Madison Square Garden. The band is currently touring in support of A Different Kind of Truth, their first album since reuniting with David Lee Roth. The last full length Van Halen release with Diamond Dave on vocals was the album 1984, some 28 years ago.

While the band has a history of conflict between members, there was no sign of it during their show. They all seemed genuinely happy to be performing together, which shows in the photos from the concert.

The full gallery of photos can be seen here.

Last Saturday, Megadeth’s Gigantour made a stop at the Theater at Madison Square Garden.

You don’t really want to read any more words! You’re here to see the photos, right?

The full set of concert shots can be seen here.

This year marks the 25th anniversary of the release of Guns N’ Roses’ debut album, Appetite For Destruction, which makes the band eligible for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

While there is speculation and hope that the original lineup of Guns N’ Roses will reunite for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony this summer, Axl is keeping his chops up by touring with his current version of the band. It was just announced that they will be playing three shows in New York City in mid-February.They were last in the NYC area in November, when they played at Izod Center in New Jersey.

A gallery of photos from the Izod Center show can be seen here.

After seeing Adele’s second album, 21, at the top of the charts throughout 2011, it is no surprise that it was the highest selling album of the year. What is surprising, though, is how many copies were sold. The year-end Soundscan figures were released last week, showing that 21 has sold over 5.1 million copies, making it the first album to sell over five million copies in one year since 2004, when Usher’s Confessions sold 7.9 million copies.

Both of Adele’s albums, 19 and 21, were named for her age when making the albums. On May 5th, 2009, Adele played Roseland Ballroom in New York, as one of the last shows of her “An Evening with Adele” tour. This date also happened to be her 21st birthday.

By then, Adele had been touring for nearly a year and 19 was a big success, so I was surprised that I was only one of two photographers covering the show. After shooting the first three songs of the set from the pit in front of the stage, I was told that it was Adele’s birthday and a surprise was planned which I should stay to photograph. At the end of the performance, a cake was rolled out onto the stage and balloons were dropped over the audience as they sang “Happy Birthday” to Adele.

Click here to see the full photo gallery from the show.

Picture this: it’s 1983. Every Breath You Take is the biggest song on the radio. A young boy, who is probably wearing velcro-lace shoes and a Swatch watch, just bought his very first rock album. That album is Synchronicity by The Police. That little boy is me.

The Police were my first favorite band and have been a strong musical influence throughout my life. After their breakup, I continued to be a fan of Sting and his solo work.

I had the opportunity to photograph Sting’s two most recent tours. In the summer of 2010, Sting was backed by the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra on his “Symphonicities” tour. I attended their performance at Nikon at Jones Beach Theater on Long Island. Last week, Sting visited Roseland Ballroom with a more traditional rock lineup on his “Back to Bass” tour.

Here are galleries for each show:

Sting – Back to Bass

Sting – Symphonicities

Since I have only made a few website updates since August, I have a backlog of photo galleries that I want to post. The first is a collection of photos from the Dave Matthews Band Caravan on Governors Island. This event was scheduled to take place August 26-28. As my friends on the east coast will recall, that was the weekend that Hurricane Irene came to visit.

The storm was predicted to blow right through New York Harbor on the morning of August 28th. As a precaution, the city was pretty much shut down for the weekend. All events city-wide were cancelled on Saturday and Sunday, leaving Friday as the only day of the DMB Caravan festival on Governors Island. While more prudent New Yorkers were raiding grocery store shelves to stock up on food and water, I joined several thousand Dave Matthews Band fans in throwing caution to the wind and boarding ferries across the aforementioned New York Harbor.

It ended up being a beautiful day – pretty much perfect for an outdoor music festival. The lineup for the day was:

The Wood Brothers

Vieux Farka Toure

Soulive

Citizen Cope

O.A.R.

Dave Matthews Band

Here’s the Gallery!

Last month, I photographed Break of Reality’s concert at Hiro Ballroom. They are a talented four-piece band consisting of three cellists and a percussionist/drummer. Mixing classical and rock, their captivating live set combined originals with instrumental covers of songs from hard rock and metal bands, such as Metallica and Tool.

In addition to shooting their performance, I had some time with them before their show to shoot some portraits and candids of them warming up.

Seeing such technically-skilled performers playing their complex arrangements was really impressive and inspiring. Most often, after photographing a great show, I am excited about photography and want to shoot more. After seeing Break of Reality, I felt excited about music! I just wanted to pick up my guitar and play. I think that really says a lot about the power of seeing such great musicianship in a live performance.

Be sure to check out the full gallery from the show.

The CMJ Music Marathon returns to New York City this week. The annual festival celebrates indie music by bringing approximately 1,200 acts to venues throughout Manhattan and Brooklyn.

To get myself fired up for CMJ this year, I took a quick look at some of my photos from the past two years of CMJ and compiled a collection of some of my favorite shots. Some of the acts I first heard about at past CMJ events have since gained international popularity. Most notably, Mumford and Sons performed at Mercury Lounge during CMJ 2009, a few months before the US release of their album, Sigh No More, which went on to top charts worldwide and earn the band two Grammy nominations.

Visit the gallery to see photos of CMJ performances by Mumford & Sons, Val Emmich, Emilie Simon, Diamond Rings, Malajube, Surfer Blood, Grand Analog, PS I Love You, Peggy Sue, Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr., John Darnielle/Extra Lens, and Random Recipe.