This photo on the right is actually from the third Fuzzlin gig I've attended. They were some of the first gigs I attended and the are a whole range of additional problems when dealing with low light venues which I had not encountered.
A fast fixed focal length lens is vital. It is always dark, even with the spotlights and being able to freeze a moment, at least sufficiently to capture the mood is important. As you can see, the image to the right was taken with a 50mm price and a fast aperture. Although, not as fast as it’s capable of, so as not to have a single point in focus, a lesson I learned from previous gigs.
I've (on advice from Esper) generally tried to have three key lenses with me, a fixed prime, a zoom and a wide-angle lens. Two of these are on show on these pages. The wide-angle covers the whole stage, though I have since learned the value of exposure compensation to reduce the blown-out whites.