DZ Deathrays + Palms + Foam @ The Zoo, 09.05.2014

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At a guess I’d say that the members of Foam have a few albums between them, at least two of which are by Nirvana.

It’s the second time I’ve seen Palms recently and they get a generous 45 minute for a supporting band. Tonight’s show is a few days after my 10th anniversary of living in Australia and when I first moved to Sydney, Red Riders were one of those bands that were everywhere. Maybe it’s just looking at the personnel in the band but I keep considering whether the music the band play is that much different to what Alex Griggs and Tom Wallace played in their old band and trying to rationalise whether the sound never went out of fashion or whether, thanks to a decade-long cycle, is back in vogue.

If tonight results in any conclusions being reached, it’s that I miss those days when you could photograph DZ Deathrays without the need for a photo pit. Those days are long gone and trying to photograph them tonight is a bit of a write-off. Thanks to their love of serious and over-zealous strobe lighting, it always used to be fun to photograph them to make use of all that strobing but now they’ve hit the big time they’ve upgraded to fancy LED lighting rigs and smoke machines: every photographer’s worst nightmare combo. Bearing the weight of the crowd and being crushed against the stage is no fun, but not being able to get anything much in the way of usable photos makes the experience a whole lot more frustrating. I’m sure I’ll be back photographing the band at some stage in the future but it’s going to be at a venue where I’ve at least got the luxury of a photo pit to comfortably stroll up and down in.

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