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October 25th, 2003
NR.com
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Acclaimed photojournalist TEUN VOETEN has covered countless war zones such as the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Haiti, Afghanistan, Chechnya, Columbia, Liberia and Iraq. His powerful photographs have graced the pages of publications like Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, Newsweek and National Geographic. They have also been used by the United Nations, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International to expose the realities of war. He discusses all this in the We Are Family Foundation’s website in “Visions of Hope – An Interview and Photo Essay.” Now, Teun has created a photo gallery that’s off his beaten path. A former saxophone player himself, Teun |
jumped at the chance to shoot CHIC in his current base of Brussels, Belgium this summer 2003.
Here’s what he has to say about this experience:
When I was in high school, everybody was into punk rock and rock & roll. Me too, of course. Disco was considered very un-cool but I couldn't help it, I just loved CHIC. I still have sweet memories of my first girlfriend and me dancing to the beat of Le Freak. So when I heard CHIC was playing again, that they would come to Belgium, I went totally crazy.
I immediately called my favorite second-hand record dealer, Pieter Van Ulden, and said, "Man, pull out everything of CHIC you have in the house." He didn't have Le Freak but had this other good album, CHIC-ism. I played it four days in a row, seven times a day, so I was really in the mood when they came. I found some new amazing songs on that album, like Jusagroove. The guitar, the bass and the drums are extremely sophisticated, yet incredibly funky.
| In Europe, a lot of artists have huge attitudes and big egos so I was happily surprised that the whole CHIC crew was so normal, friendly and low-key. I was also amazed what hard work it is: the band spent seven hours in a bus that day because the open air concert was in a little village 40 miles outside town. They had four hours of sleep that night, no partying. Maybe a lot of people think it's glamorous, but it's a serious job. The concert lasted 90 minutes, with about 15,000 people, and they came back onstage [in response to encore demands] two or three times. |  |
The concert was even better than I expected. “Yowsah, yowsah, yowsah” -- it was incredible to see it live. The audience went bananas. CHIC got very good reviews in the newspapers the next day. They compared Nile Rodgers and former bass player, Bernard Edwards, as the Lennon and McCartney of disco.
It was weird for me to shoot this because basically, I work as a photojournalist in crisis zones. I felt very nervous because it's a different ballgame. You work with different cameras and lenses, but I still tried to shoot the concert documentary style, more in a journalistic way. It was great but I could not shoot bands every day. CHIC gave me VIP treatment. But if you’re a full-time music photographer, you have to deal with bands that have egos and nasty managers. You're not allowed to take certain photos from certain angles, you have a very small time slot, and it's all a big hassle. But it's great to do it once in awhile if you have total access to a cool group like CHIC. For me, an old-time CHIC freak, it was an incredible experience to spenda day with the band and Nile.