Maybe it's me seeing things through a romantic halo...
I'm looking at pictures of recent shows - in this case, Queen with Adam Lambert - but I've noticed the same elsewhere, especially when we saw KISS last November.
Everything is drenched in harsh digital light, and it feels strangely similar to walking in Times Square at night. It kind of kills the mood, as far as I'm concerned.
I remember looking at pictures when I was a kid and part of the magic was that those guys on stage seemed to be standing into some kind of almost infinite space. Sometimes all you could see was a guy with a guitar wit 2 or 3 distant spotlights glowing in a sea of darkness... Established artists had that privilege of being able to summon that mood, to create that magic.
Of course, it was also a matter of angle and all, but still... Just like music is also dependant on the silent space between notes, visuals can greatly benefit from not over-exposing everything.
The funny thing is that when we went to see Kurios in SF in December, one of the first thing that stuck me is that they didn't use any harsh light - everything had that warm halo, more yellow than blue.
TCB - Tea, Cats, Books...