Archive for October 2008
There was a two-song limit in place for photographing Joan As Police Woman. But not something sensible like Songs One and Two or Two and Three; instead it was the slightly bizarre pairing of Songs Two and Five. In retrospect there was some method to this madness, as these songs gave the differing opportunites of photographing Joan at her side-of-stage keyboard (Song One) and photographing her mid-stage whilst playing guitar (Song Five). The main downside to this arrangement was that it meant concentrating on which number song she was up to so as to not miss being able to take some photos.
It was the most full I’ve seen the Globe and it was a very interesting crowd that she pulled in. I never would have expected a middle-age woman in a nasty, very 80s looking, fire-hazard-of- an-all-in-one jumpsuit and pink boots combination to have attracted the audience that she did… It would have made for a good variety of social pics…
The lighting wasn’t up to the usual Globe standards, with lots of red backlighting aimed at the back of her head. And she was another one of those singers who always has their eyes shut. Musically it was probably a bit too jazz-caberet for me, so I only ended up staying for a couple more songs after I had to stop photographing. You can get hold of her performance from the Turn It Up To 10 blog.
My work recently located from Milton to a new 12 storey building in the Valley. I ended up being given a corner seat on the 12th floor. My view kind of looks like this.
Sometimes it’s hard to get much work done…
This night was one of those very rare occasions at The Zoo when you’re given a photo pass and told “first three, no flash”. Whilst I can deal with this “industry standard”, it is a pain when it’s at a small venue without a photo pit and without much in the way of lighting.
Support act tonight were Bluejuice. I wasn’t that impressed for the three songs I saw them for at Splendour In The Grass and having seen a full set I’m even less impressed. With all the “hey, hey, hey”s, the handclapping and the cheesy keyboard sound they sound like a band that got lost on the way to a Greek wedding. This isn’t helped by the two frontmen’s stage presence, which makes them a couple of pork pie hats and a couple pairs of sunglasses away from being some sort of bad tribute to the Blues Brothers. Much is made of Jake Stone’s (he’s even called Jake….) stage antics, but these people really need to go and sixfthick play sometime.  Despite the reputation he was fairly quiet tonight, even making the point that he didn’t have to throw himself around to have a good time.  Or maybe that was just a cover-up for a not-very-rock-n-roll excuse of making sure he saved himself for the weekend’s sold-out Sounds Of Spring festival in the city. Sure, they may have had the 2nd most played song on Triple J during 2007 and been Number 11 on their Hottest 100 run-down for the year, but that just goes to show that people have no taste.
I wasn’t sure what to expect from We Are Scientists. Sometimes when you’re not quite sure how well known a band is, and wonder how big a crowd they’re going to pull at $55 a pop, you have images of them playing to the proverbial three men and a dog. So it was a real surprise to see that they’d pulled a sizeable crowd, although a bit disappointing that it was probably bigger than the night before’s New Pornographers gig at the same venue.
In typical fashion, the “first three, no flash” meant that they played in a combination of the dark and uber-red lighting. Live their sound is a lot beefier, than I had expected. They did seem to front-load their set with their better known tunes, although I didn’t stay for the whole set to see how much of an impact it had; a combination of having seen enough, tiredness and wanting to get back and try (and fail…) to get Big Day Out tickets when they went on sale at midnight. I managed to get some from Ticketmaster the next morning but am always open to offers of a BDO photo pass, what with BDO being the one major Australian festival that I have yet to photograph. So feel free to contact me if you have a spare photo pass going for the Gold Coast show…
We Are Scientists
Bluejuice
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I confess: bar a tune or two, New Pornographers were a band I mainly knew by reputation and recommendation. 100 or so minutes and two encores later I’m a true convert with a copy of their latest album, ‘Challengers‘Â in my bag and money burning a hole in my pocket until I can get myself down to Rocking Horse to get started on their back catalogue. They might have butchered the Go-Betweens’ ‘Love Goes On!’, but other than that it was a pretty perfect evening of music. Which is more than can be said for the photography…
There’s something of a fine line when it comes to photographing gigs; do too many and you end up feeling tired and jaded. But do too few and you really feel off the pace, and this was something that I really felt tonight. Although it had only been about 2½ weeks since the gigs I went to whilst down In Melbourne, and only about 3½ weeks since my last Brisbane gig, it was only my second gig in the city since mid-August. What surprised me even more was finding that it was the first time photographing at The Zoo, easily my most regular haunt, since The Audreys back in May.
Feeling very off the pace was a frustrating feeling, further compounded by both A.C. Newman and Kathryn Calder singing and playing with their eyes tightly shut for just about the whole gig. I was desperately trying to get shots during the milliseconds when they flashed an eyeball, but apart from a couple of shots it proved to be largely a futile exercise.
