Live at Proud, Camden (United Kingdom).
12 October 2011.

It’s taken me far too long to upload these photos. Van Coke Kartel & Fokofpolisiekar came over to London in May and gave all the SA expats a chunk of Afrikaans Rock induced nostalgia. Unfortunately I got there too late to catch The Spindle Sect, who I’ve been wanting to see for ages.

The lighting at the Clapham Grand wasn’t great and there wasn’t a press pit so these certainly aren’t the best photos I’ve taken.

As much as I loved the show, this write-up is actually about my experience taking live music photos for the first time in ages.

My time in the photography pit has diminished terribly since moving to the UK. The main reason for this was a lack of contacts. In South Africa I had access to the country’s biggest rock band which gave me access to great shows. The industry is small enough to make press passes a breeze to organise. I have taken photos at a few shows in the UK but not as many as I’d like. Now that I’ve settled into my job at Warner I’m eager to get back into it.

This was the first gig and big test for my brand new lens, a Canon 24-70mm f2.8 USM zoom lens. The wide aperture makes it ideal for low-light gig photography.

Fenech-Soler’s lighting was a combination of extremes. The stage was generally very dark with sporadic strobe lights. This looks great to the naked eye but is a serious challenge for any photographic equipment.

I have been experimenting with a technique of shooting on Aperture Priority and underexposing the shot. The theory is that the shutter speed will vary to match the conditions, producing the ideal exposure. This works fine when the lighting is more consistent but is far less effective with flashing lights. The camera would focus and set the ideal exposure but the lights would change so quickly that by the time I took the picture the whole scene had changed. I promptly switched back to full manual settings and got much better shots. I need to trust that I know what I’m doing. There’s no need to rely on auto settings when I know better.

Once I’d shaken the rust off, I made a tragic rookie mistake. The new lens doesn’t fit in my old bag, so I was carrying a Lowerpro backpack that my cousin gave me. When my memory card ran out of space I couldn’t remember where the ‘conveniently located spare memory card pouch’ was. Doh!

I don’t think I got any award-winning shots but it was a good first-run with the 24-70mm. Autofocus struggled a bit in the dark, which was frustrating, but all-in-all the lens performed well in those conditions. I’m looking forward to using it on a bigger stage with less erratic lighting. Watch this space.

I’m really proud of the panorama in this set. View a larger version of it here.

The very short journey from London Bridge tube station to The Tower of London should take no more than 15 minutes. Because Brett and I kept stopping to take photographs, and the cold forcing us to stop for a hot drink, we took 2 hours to cross the bridge.

These photos are the result of that journey Tower Bridge.

The full collection of photographs taken on a boat trip along the Thames with live performances by Joe Robbins and Plush. Featured song is ‘Lucky Fish’ by Plush.

Really intimate performances from Plush and Joe Robbins on a boat cruising along the Thames River. 24 July 2010. London, United Kingdom.

On the back of massive TV placements like House, The Sarah Connor Chronicles and One Tree Hill, Civil Twilight has been exploding in the US. Now London-based fans have a chance to catch their first UK performances. They’ll be playing the very intimate Barfly and Monto Water Rats. The band was amazing live when I last saw them six years ago. Trust me, seeing them in these small venues will be an opportunity you don’t want to miss out on.

They’ll be joined by Company of Thieves. I only got the album recently and I’m really impressed. Looking forward to seeing them live.

Get your tickets here:
Tuesday 8th June – Camden Barfly
Wednesday 9th June – Monto Water Rats

Find out more about both bands:
http://civiltwilightband.com
http://www.companyofthieves.net

When I still worked at Beatroute Records and Communion we shared an office with Autonomy Music Group. It certainly was a strange coincidence that they are the company responsible for marketing The Parlotones in the UK. I used to tell them about watching The Parlotones perform to a less than 10 people back in 2003. They invited me to watch the band at The Electric Ballroom in Camden.

Since moving to London I’ve been to a lot of big shows, but I have really missed the kind of photography access I had back in SA. It was brilliant to get back into the pit for a big show with decent lighting. The support band, The Little Million, were top class and really entertaining.

I haven’t seen The Parlotones live for ages (aside from a packed Flowerpot gig where I couldn’t actually see them). By the time they exploded in SA I had watched them so many times that I refused to join the masses at shows… I was always better at supporting the underdog. It was great to see how polished and professional they are these days, yet they still manage to keep a humble and approachable presence, even from the stage. They’ve worked really hard to get to this point and I’m really impressed that they haven’t let it change them. It was a quality show and made me proud to see a South African band pull such a crowd in London (even if it was the entire population of South London). That said, they are steadily growing a decent UK fanbase. Radio play and a tour supporting Ash are bound to take them to a new level.

Handshake
‘Dance Before You Die’ EP launch.
The Flowerpot (Kentish Town, London).
19 March 2010.

I put together a list of 30 songs we’ve seen live in the past twelve months. This playlist doesn’t cover all the bands we’ve seen, it’s just the highlights package. I don’t own music by all the support acts or bands we saw at Reading Festival. I also left off Limp Bizkit, because Ana-Paula really didn’t like them. It was quite a task to try and remember all the shows, fortunately I use a site called Songkick to get gig updates, so it was easy to track my gigography. If you’re interested you can listen to a variation of this playlist on Spotify. We already have some great shows planned for the next few months, so hopefully next year’s playlist will be even better!

1. Dear Reader – Bend
2. Gentlemen – Sending cards
3. People In Planes – Pretty Buildings
4. Jukebox The Ghost – Hold It In
5. Nightmare of You – The Studded Cinctures
6. Nine Inch Nails – Hurt
7. The Used – I Caught Fire
8. Manchester Orchestra – I’ve Got Friends
9. Bloc Party – Hunting For Witches
10. Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Pin
11. Kaiser Chiefs – Oh My God
12. Metric – Help I’m Alive (Acoustic)
13. Deftones – Change (In The House Of Flies)
14. Maximo Park – Girls Who Play Guitars
15. Billy Talent – Red Flag
16. Jamie T – Sheila
17. The Gossip – Standing In The Way Of Control
18. Jack Peñate – Run For Your Life
19. Vampire Weekend – A-Punk
20. Radiohead – Karma Police
21. The Rumble Strips – Alarm Clock
22. The Pixies – Gigantic
23. Green Day – Basket Case
24. Silversun Pickups – Panic Switch
25. Placebo – Every You Every Me (Live)
26. Them Crooked Vultures – New Fang
27. OK Go – Invincible
28. Finley Quaye – Sunday Shining
29. The Parlotones – Dragonflies and astronauts
30. Lostprophets – Last Train Home

I’m very impressed with the pics I got using my Canon 50mm f1.8 lens. It is an amazing little lens.

The Shotguns performing at The Halfmoon in Putney (London). Supported by Craig Moore.

On Monday ‘Things Worth Fighting For’ took on a whole new life as John McKeown and co. met to start rehearsals for the album’s showcase. If the first rehearsal is anything to go by then the 10th September is destined to be a very significant day in the rock ‘n’ roll history books.

John called on his friends and colleagues Elliott Randall and Reverend Basil Meade to assemble the finest musicians capable of bringing this album to the stage. During this first rehearsal the calibre of the team shone through vividly.

‘Things Worth Fighting For’ may be one man’s album but he is a man with an epic vision; a vision that will see 25 stellar musicians teaming up to recreate an ambitious and excellently crafted album.

I was invited to take photos of the first rehearsal. Take a look at the photos below to see what went on.

I was invited to take photographs for a Hed Kandi event at Pacha. The opportunity to expand my portfolio was really exciting, and I looked forward to exploring an unfamiliar side of London’s nightlife. I felt like an old man when I was asked to “get there early, around 11pm”. It was great to get looked after with free drinks and VIP access, but I really was out of my element. I focussed on the job I was there to do and spent most of the night wrestling with great lighting that wasn’t directed at any of the subjects I was shooting. The highlight of the event was definitely the live musicians Pav (percussion) and Laura (sax).

I was disappointed with my photos yet they instantly had more views than any of my other images on Flickr. It just goes to show that tagging images as “sexy”, “dancer” and “bikini” gets a lot more attention than “rock”, “concert” and “band”.

Here’s a quick run-down of the bands that played.

The Sea

You don’t see two piece bands all that often; one drummer and one guitarist/singer/keyboardist. Keeping it simple makes The Sea incredibly good at what they do. The guitar driven songs were almost psychedelic, yet focussed. When the front-man moved to the keyboard I found that we were listening to an entirely different band. They played a new song which was a real piano-pop tune with plenty of hook and radio-friendly appeal. Although I preferred their rocking tunes more, the lone pop-song really stood out, it could be the huge hit they hate playing in years to come.

Telegraphs

Telegraphs look like a band, it’s like someone cut them out of the “being a rock band handbook” and dropped them off at the borderline. They had a great stage presence and played a very tight set. I didn’t feel like I’d rush out and buy an album after the show but but having listened to their recorded stuff since then, they’ve definitely grown on me.

Hunting the Minotaur

You can’t blame me for being skeptical when a band gets on stage with a keytar and plays cheesy pop songs to tune up. Hunting the Minotaur blew me away! They were really really really good. The singer’s on-stage banter was awkward but it seemed more like intentional sarcasm than nerves. This is a young group of guys who don’t take themselves too seriously, but they don’t need to when their music is that good. After their set Ian Camfield from XFM asked for a copy of their new EP, so they asked him for £3… I still think Ian should have paid them. I’m really looking forward to the future of this band.

Swound!

The headline act gave the impression that they’ve been doing this for some time. I’m not sure how long Swound! has been around, but they are very professional. The band clearly has some heavy influences and I’m sure they’d like to be a hardcore punk band, but they’re actually very polished and borderline pop-punk. They’re great entertainers and certainly know how to put on a show. They were playing the Radio One’s Big Weekend the following day, so everything they do is obviously paying off. Swound! (I was told the exclamation mark is important)  are a great bunch of guys so I hope they’ll have plenty of success.

The two days I spent taking photos for City Showcase was really exhausting but so rewarding. I didn’t make any life-changing contacts but after 3 months in London I finally felt like I was contributing to the local music scene.