From X at The Ding Dong Lounge, it was a bit of a magical mystery tour to Roxanne Parlour, despite the venue only being just down the road. Eventually, after a walk around the block, going into a somewhat random building with no sign outside saying that this was the place and getting the lift up to the second floor, we were there.

Sixfthick became my most seen live band a long time ago (beating the previous record held by Spiritualized), but this was the first time that I’d seen them away from Brisbane. The most noticeable difference between most Brisbane shows and tonight’s Melbourne show was the crowd, who were just wild. As well as mosh pit collapsing onto the front of the low stage throughout the gig, Gentle Ben returned from one of his forays into the crowd with his underwear pulled up above his jeans and looking ragged. At which point he decided he would deprive the audience of their fun and just rip them off through his jeans… As you do…

They played a similar set to the ones they’ve played recently in Brisbane, including their cover of X’s ‘The Feel’, but even having seen them play so many times, you just can’t get tired of seeing them.  They have the songs and they have the show.  It’s heartening to see them get a sizeable crowd in the Melbourne, something of a graveyard for Brisbane bands.  In a fair world they should be being booked to play every major festival in Australia and hopefully that time isn’t too far around the corner.

A few more photos on flickr, with maybe a few more to come when I have a bit more time.

Work has taken me down to Victoria for a few weeks, but there’s always time to fit in a gig or two, especially when I had a couple of nights in Melbourne. First up was X supported by Rollerball at The Ding Dong Lounge. After a few years of only knowing Richard Sharman of Black Shadow Photography via various music and music photography forums and through emails we finally got to meet up and go for a few drinks and he got me into the gig as his +1.

I had checked with Richard about the camera friendliness of the venues in the city and he had let me know that the Ding Dong Lounge and Roxanne’s Parlour, our next port of call were fine with cameras but the lighting was pretty crappy. The lighting at the Ding Dong Lounge was similar to an average to good night at The Zoo. So that’s better than pretty much all the smaller venues in Brisbane…  A lot of red light, but you can’t have everything…

Rollerball were a blast from the past, having not heard anything from them in a long while. I photographed them at The Rev in Brisbane back in October 2005, when they were supporting The Original Angels Band. It was the last gig I photographed solely on film, a week before buying a digital camera, the same digital camera I still use and really should think about upgrading… I would post a link to the photos but I did them for a low quality music website that has stuffed up all their old galleries somehow, so they don’t actually contain the photos they should, having both different sets of photos and photos from completely different photographers.

After hearing so much about X over the last few years, especially on much-missed high quality Australian music forums, it was good to finally get to check them out. Really enjoyed their set, although we ducked out just before the end, just after their intense cover of John Lennon’s ‘Mother’. Although they’re a very old school Oz Rock sounding band, they reminded me, in parts, of a more punk version of Slade, mostly due to Steve Lucas’s vocals.

A few more photos on flickr, with maybe a few more to come when I have a bit more time.

X

Rollerball

I managed to fit in Kim Salmon And The Surrealists’ gig at the Step Inn whilst back in Brisbane for a few days, in between being in Far North Queensland and being down in Victoria. Although I have seen Kim Salmon with Darling Downs, his acoustic country/folk duo with Died Pretty’s Ron Peno, this was the first time that I’d seen him play electric. Stupidly I missed The Scientists show at The Columbian a couple of years ago and disappointingly they didn’t play in Brisbane earlier in 2008 as part of the Don’t Look Back series, when they played their Blood Red River album in its entirety.

I’ve photographed a few gigs at The Step Inn before but it’s not my favourite of venues. I don’t like the layout – it’s a pub with a small stage in the corner as opposed to being what I would consider a bona fide live music venue – and the lighting is really poor, easily rivalling that of the Troubadour. Apparently the capacity is 380, but I think only about a third of that number have any chance of getting into the room where the stage is. Somewhat surprisingly, The Bronx are playing there in December and whilst I’d love to photograph them, the thought of photographing them there just isn’t doing it for me. It would be great to see them up close in such an intimate venue so maybe I’ll just have to leave the camera at home…

A few more photos on flickr.

Got another of those last minute requests, this time to cover Robert Forster’s gig at the Brisbane Powerhouse, which I couldn’t say no to.  Unfortunately it was a 3 songs and escorted out of the venue job, which was a shame as I always enjoy seeing him play.  In addition, it was a bit of a frustrating shoot as we were only allowed to photograph from way out to the side of the stage, the high positioned lighting meant dark shadows under his brow so it was hard to get a shot of his eyes, and he played the first three songs (at least) solo on an acoustic guitar with the rest of his band no where in sight.  Not the greatest shots ever.  Although the colour of the lighting was fine, as usual, I prefer the monotone shots.

Better Robert Forster photos can be seen in my blogs for The Brisbane Sound and the 4 Ages of Robert Forster residency at the Powerhouse last year.

The night before I went up to Cooktown back in July I was commissioned by Mr Rascal to photograph their album launch at the Cremorne Theatre at QPAC, with Carry Nation and Granite Lakes supporting. Nice little venue, with excellent sound and some pretty good lights; a nice change from the usual venue fare in the Valley. Was a really great night, with the band really making the effort to make it a special event and swelling their ranks with a host of additional musicians, including a horn section and backing singers.

Photos are up on Mr Rascal’s myspace site.

Carry Nation

 
Granite Lakes

Mr Rascal