This Is Not A Photo Opportunity

Broken Social Scene & Stars = Broken Nose Scene & Seeing Stars

Always good to see promoters organise extracurricular sideshows for bands playing festivals in Brisbane – in this case with both Broken Social Scene and Stars playing the following day at the Laneway Festival. And even better that the sideshow at The Zoo sold out; one step closer to hopefully convincing more promoters that it is worth putting on the extra shows that Sydney and Melbourne always get. On the downside, a sold out Zoo is never the best place to photograph bands…

Had been listening to the Stars album on their myspace page and sounded ok; some songs better than others. And was same experience seeing them play live. They started well, but lost a bit as their set went on. The trouble is that whilst at their best they have an air of The Postal Service about them, at their worst, with the male/female joint vocals, they creep just too close to Deacon Blue for comfort.

For Broken Social Scene positioned myself near the front but a couple of rows back. Trouble was that I was behind a guy who as soon as the band hit the stage felt the need to constantly punch the air, which meant an elbow-camera-nose interface twice in the first song which didn’t put me in the best of moods…

I had planned on doing 3 songs and getting out but found it very hard actually getting clear shots with the combination of the air-punching guy and all the people at the front with their P&S cameras held above their heads…

Did 4 songs, didn’t get anything very good. Went to the bar…

Tried a few shots from the other side of the stage later in their set but the view was just as bad. Spiral Stairs from Pavement made a guest appearance; I don’t think he has the same Picture of Dorian Gray thing that Malkmus has got happening…

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 8th, 2008 at 4:45 am. It is filed under Music Photography and tagged with Amy Millan, Brisbane, Broken Social Scene, Justin Edwards, Kevin Drew, Spiral Stairs, Stars, The Zoo, Torquil Campbell. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.