Crazy On Moriah Formica

Moriah Formica, if you live in the good old 518 area, is not a new name. She is another one of the many extremely hard-working and talented superstars to find fame, be it local or international, on a reality television music competition show. She is what Adam Levine, front man for Maroon5, has called a “pint-size powerhouse” and what country superstar Blake Shelton once referred to as someone who received an extra dose of talent when God got distracted when He was sprinkling it onto people. It’s people like Moriah that make me joke that they need to save some talent for the rest of us.

A little background: Moriah, as you may have guessed, was a competitor on season 13 NBC’s Emmy Award-winning show The Voice. She wowed the judges with a fantastic performance of Heart’s classic “Crazy On You,” turning all four of their chairs and giving them the opportunity to fight for her attention. Ultimately, Moriah decided on Miley Cyrus, and carried stellar performance after stellar performance until she had run her course on the show. Rookie mistake, Miley. I’m not sure if Mo is still salty about that, but I sure am.

https://youtu.be/mxOySQFatSw

The Voice wasn’t her first rodeo. She’d been wowing local audiences even before her stint on TV. She’d been gigging for so much of her young life. She’d released an EP, a music video, and writing music with people like Michael Sweet of Stryper. She was and remains a voice of what I believe to be a renaissance of good rock music. And there’s a few of those rockers in town, but I’ll get to them another time.

She returned home from LA to the 518 and played a sold-out show in Jupiter Hall, even adding an encore performance because of the demand. The area flocked to see her. Young girls decked in t-shirts with her face on them and wide-eyed as Moriah offered to take photos with them at her shows. All-the-while Moriah remained humble and kind. To them at least. She’s a sassmaster to me 😉

These shows in Jupiter Hall, only a little over a year ago, were my first gigs as a concert photographer. I say this every time and I don’t care if anyone is sick of it. I am still ever-grateful that the Formica family took a chance and let me in as a photographer who didn’t have a portfolio of concert photography. Without them I wouldn’t be here, and they have treated me like family. But that night, that Black Friday sold-out show in Jupiter Hall, was the day I learned how much I loved doing this. Even if I was dripping with sweat, barely able to move in my new leg brace, and pushing through people who gave me dirty looks as I tried to take photos. I loved it.

Flash forward to this past weekend. Moriah was playing a gig at this place I’d never been to called Chrome up in Waterford. I wasn’t sure what to expect from this place. It looked like a normal bar from the outside, but inside it was definitely a concert hall, albeit a small one. Humongous speakers were stacked high on either side of the stage and colorful light rigs were mounted above it. And there was a real sound board, not just some guy with an amp and a laptop.

Preempted by some students from Moriah‘s music school, this show rocked. Moriah and her band (Nick: Guitar, Tony: Drums, Andrew: Bass) were as lively and passionate as ever. They (being Moriah and Nick) ran across the stage, flipping their hair wildly, leaping, interacting with fans, and overall just having a blast performing for the crowd. The lights lit them up in dramatic ways, and they performed songs familiar to the set (“Crazy On You” is of course a fan-favorite and many of Moriah‘s originals such as “I Will” or “Slave“), new cover songs (like Black Sabbath’s “Heaven and Hell”) and even some new originals. This quartet (occasional quintet when brother Gabe joins the stage) knows how to entertain a crowd and they know how to do it well. They are real pros.

It had some great lighting but it was also the loudest venue I’ve ever been to, and that’s including some of the big amphitheaters. I’m not sure those aforementioned giant speakers were necessary for the size of the room, which was maybe 1000 square feet in the concert hall itself. My ears were ringing loudly and I was wearing custom high-fidelity ear plugs. And if it hurt me, I can’t imagine how damaging it was for some of young fans in the audience. And the older ones. Because of the way these speakers were positioned, if you were in the front rows between them, you couldn’t hear a damn thing she was singing. The guitars and drums reverberated around the room just fine, but her strong badass vocals were completely drowned out. Which is a loss, because Moriah will knock your socks off when she’s, for example, belting out that wailing dissonant tone in “Immigrant Song.”

This is in no ways critical of Moriah. She’s amazing and I will fight you if you diss her. But it certainly affects the way I listen to, and take pictures of, a performance. And if it affects me, the one who’s seen her probably a dozen times now, how does it affect the ears and experience of a new listener? Maybe it’s just a matter of balancing the high and low frequencies out or simply just dialing it back, but it was really loud and she got drowned out. Someone like Moriah deserves the best sound she can get.

Canon 6D MK II + Canon EF 50mm 1.8 STM
Canon T6s + Canon EF 70-200 L IS II

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