I met Rainy Eyes at Jazz Fest in New Orleans. A few months later I was sleeping in a cabin with them in the Colorado mountains, which is a sentence I did not see coming.

None of it was planned. We met in the crowd, talked for a while, and went back to our regular lives. When their West Coast tour cut through Colorado, they asked if I wanted to come shoot a couple of stops. I said yes before I finished reading the text.

Black and white portrait of the Rainy Eyes vocalist in a hat and sunglasses, live music photography by Tara Lenehan

Denver, then up the hill

They played Denver first. Then we drove up into the mountains for Winter Park's High-Note Thursdays, a free summer concert series at the Rendezvous Event Center. Their set was July 9, six to eight in the evening. There is a big curved wooden roof over the stage and the mountains just sit behind it, showing off.

We stayed in a cabin together. I know how that sounds. But sharing a kitchen with people for a few days changes the pictures. The camera stops being a big deal. Nobody sucks in their stomach for it. It just hangs around while everyone argues about coffee and loses their phone chargers.

The band's golden retriever tour dog rests on the concrete plaza at the Rendezvous Event Center between shows
The quietest one on the tour. He had the right idea.

The part nobody photographs

Touring is mostly waiting. It is the drive, the parking lot, the long soft middle of the afternoon. We killed some of that time at the Grand Park rec center, swimming laps and sitting in the sauna, which is a very funny way to get ready to play rock and roll to a few hundred people in the mountains.

The rest of the time we just floated. Somebody tuned a guitar. Somebody wandered down to the creek behind the cabin. I shot the boring parts on purpose, because the boring parts are where people actually look like themselves.

Three band members talk together in the forest between performances, behind-the-scenes tour documentary photography
Group portrait of the four members of Rainy Eyes beside a mountain creek in Winter Park, Colorado
Behind the cabin, nobody in a hurry. That is usually when the good portraits show up.

Then it started raining

About an hour before the set, the sky opened. Rain came sideways across the Rendezvous Center and the crowd scattered. The seats emptied. Everything went gray and cold, and for a while it looked like the whole night was going to wash out.

Pink dusk clouds break over the curved wooden roof of the Rendezvous Event Center amphitheater after the rain
The sky making its threats over the amphitheater roof.

So we did what you do on the road. We stood under the pavilion with the gear covered, watched the clouds, stepped over the dog, and hoped people would come back.

A band member cradles the tour dog in the shade of the amphitheater before the Winter Park performance, behind-the-scenes tour documentary photography

They came back

And they did. A few minutes before the band went on, people just walked back in. They grabbed the amphitheater chairs the venue puts out for free, and some of them were dancing by the second song. The empty rows filled up. The rain quit showing off. The band walked out and played like the storm had been on the setlist all along.

Rainy Eyes' vocalist sings at the microphone under stage lights at the Rendezvous Event Center in Winter Park, Colorado
The bassist of Rainy Eyes plays on the open-air stage as the crowd gathers behind after the rain, tour documentary photography by Tara Lenehan
Full house again, ten minutes after the place was a ghost town.

Kevin ran sound, I ran everything else

Kevin, their sound engineer, recorded the whole set clean. While he caught the audio, I shot it two ways at once. Stills, like always, and video on my new DJI Osmo Pocket 3, which I had barely touched before that night.

I did not expect a camera that small to mess with my head. But moving through a set with something that holds steady and follows the motion opened up coverage I have wanted for years. Stills freeze the loud moment. The Osmo caught the stuff between the loud moments. A crowd swaying. A guitarist leaning back into a solo. Light sliding across the stage.

A Rainy Eyes guitarist plays a solo on electric guitar in front of the Play Winter Park backdrop, Winter Park concert photographer Tara Lenehan
A Rainy Eyes musician plays a stringed instrument in profile on stage at Winter Park, Denver music photographer Tara Lenehan

After the last song

The show did not end when the music did. The band went straight to the merch table and stayed there. Signing prints, signing posters, handing over records, actually talking to the people who stood through the rain to see them. That part almost never gets photographed, and it is my favorite. It is where a concert turns back into a conversation.

Overhead view of a Rainy Eyes member in a black hat signing photo prints at the merch table after the set
The vocalist of Rainy Eyes stands beside a mountain creek in a black hat and long coat, a Winter Park portrait

What is coming

Kevin's audio and my video are going to become live recordings and synced YouTube performance videos. The set, sound locked to picture, the way it actually felt standing in that room. Those are on the way.

The photos hold the rest of it. Not the finished song. The weather, the waiting, the dog, the parking lot, the drive home. For a few days I was not the photographer who shows up, shoots, and leaves. I was just in the van with everybody else. I am still thinking about it.

Sunset colors the sky above the curved wooden roofline of the Rendezvous Event Center in Winter Park, Colorado
The sky finally knocking it off, right as the night ended.

See the full gallery from this tour stop: Rainy Eyes: Denver to Winter Park →

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Tara Lenehan is a Denver-based documentary and music photographer covering live music, tours, elopements, retreats and destination campaigns across Colorado and worldwide. For press and editorial inquiries, see the Press & Credentials page.