From The Hermit’s Desk
Alleycats show at Puddletown in New Hartford on April 17 2026
This was my first visit to Puddletown, which is an indoor nerf gun action adventure place most of the time, but on Friday night was transformed into a space for bands to play. The space was a good sized rectangular room, with padding on the walls, as well as the structural poles running down the center of the room. I’m sure these pads are in place to protect kids from getting hurt while running around with their nerf guns, but they also served to cushion any collision the dancing crowd might have with these poles or walls.
There was a small platform at one end of the room, approximately the height of a pallet, ( and in fact may have been made of pallets for all I know ) which served mainly as a drum riser. The various guitarists/vocalists stood on the floor in front of this platform.
I was wearing earplugs and standing right in front of the pa most of the night, so I can’t really speak on the true quality of the sound in this space other than to say it was loud and I could hear all of the elements from each band.
As a photographer, my biggest complaint was the lighting, or more to the point, lack thereof. There were a couple of led lights, but they were set up behind the bands, and not even pointing at any of the musicians. The result was that although I could sometimes get a shot or two of each drummer with just the available light around them, the guitarists and vocalists were so dark that I needed to use flash for the entire show. As I prefer to shoot in available light, and generally only use flash for effect, I was pretty frustrated trying to get something really good.
But I had a great time, and I hope that Alleycats continue to use this space. I really hope that they can bring a little more light next time, but either way, I’ll still be there.
The bands that played were “Jam Poetry”, “Boyscout Marie”, “Trip Wire” and “Three Seater”. I had seen Three Seater a while back when they were part of a show that took place at a duckpin bowling alley, ( with the bands performing directly on the lanes ) but the other three bands were new to me. At any rate, they were all pretty high energy ( and high volume ) and I really enjoyed their sets. To be fair, music and photography being my two passions, standing in front of a live band with my camera just pleases me to no end. As a result I am probably not the type for any sort of critique. I just thoroughly enjoyed the entire show and had a great time.
The photos…well, as I said, the light was really a challenge. I didn’t get anywhere near the amount of keepers as I usually do at these shows, and the ones I did get are honestly not up to the quality that I’d prefer my work to be seen as. But that’s a concern for next time.
Click on individual photos to see them full size.
