Lindsi Rian

Lindsi Rian photographs concerts and writes about them, and teaches fifth grade the rest of the week.

Brad had been trying to get her in for a while and she could not fit him in. She finally came into the McBastard Studios for the SALTYmf GOAT Podcast, sponsored by Band Groupeez, because he wanted the view from behind the barricade instead of another view from the stage. She is married to Trey Odum, whose shows she asked to photograph about ten years ago through a paddleboard group in Arizona, and then never turned up to shoot.

A pit photographer gets the first three songs, about fifteen minutes, then has to check the camera or walk it back to the car. Live Nation venues assign a handler. The privately owned rooms are looser. She reads a room to work out where to stand. Rock gave her Caleb Shomo throwing himself around the stage with Beartooth. Riley Green stood in one spot in Athens until the last moment of the third song, then walked to her side and gave her the shot. The other half of the work is the writing musicians cannot do for themselves: bios, EPKs, one sheets, web copy. Her own website bio is a list of random things she likes, because writing about yourself is the hardest version of the job. She has been shooting and reviewing for Melodies and Memories out of Chicago for three years.

Before teaching she worked in an all men's maximum custody prison in Arizona, left that job in June and was in front of a fourth grade class in July, and spent that first year putting a leash on her mouth. She teaches fifth grade ELA and special education now, remotely, and fits the music work around it. The Shinedown show at Bridgestone Arena was approved on the evening of May 8 for May 10. She rented a lens in Atlanta rather than risk the drive without one, went three and a half hours to Nashville, left the show early and still was not home until 3:30 in the morning, because four dogs at home meant she was never staying the night. She worked an event at a vineyard the next day.

Her first major show was Jake Owen at the Tabernacle, where the speakers sat at head height and left her hearing underwater for a week and a half, so she asked other music photographers what to do and now wears baffled earplugs to everything. She shoots Sixes Tavern in Canton as readily as an arena. One line has stuck to her since she heard it at a concert years ago: comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.