This shot was taken before Cocker had made his comeback with “You can keep your hat on”. The Commodore was an old ballroom (it was demolished years ago) with a springy wooden floor and it only held several hundred people. The crowd loved him and the whole place just pumped up and down to his music. Joe seemed genuinely surprised at the audience’s warm and enthusiastic applause. He put on a great show and I feel lucky I saw him at that time in his life.

Because of the smallish crowd I was able to get up fairly close to the front and take this shot with my trusty 135mm f2.8 lens. Almost unbelievably this shot was taken using Kodachrome 64!

Here’s a video from a live performance with Joe Cocker in 1981