Somehow I’ve managed to make it into the second half of February without the traditional round-up of the previous year. Every year I get to this post and start off by saying the year was even more hectic than the one before and 2010 was no different. Year-on-year the number of gigs I’m photographing (and trying/failing to blog about) increases, with 2010, with hyperlinks to the appropriate posts where they’ve been written, looking as follows:
As in previous years, I managed to meet my target for the year of 52 gigs (i.e. an average of one a week), and meet it easily, with Gig 52, 3OH!3 at The Old Museum coming before mid-August. As last year, I’ve struggled to keep on top of it all though, partly due to not keeping on top of it last year and starting the year with a huge backlog of photos to edit and blogs to write, partly due to working on setting up Collapse Board.
Counting up the number of acts I’ve photographed during 2010, the total is 285, even more than the 259 deemed scary last year. Last year’s total was swelled thanks to the end of the year’s ATP adventure resulting in 60 bands being photographed in 10 days. Although I went back to ATP, just for the three days of the Belle & Sebastian-curated Bowlie 2 weekend, and I did consider applying for a photo pass, I decided that I didn’t really have the time to edit photos from a three-day festival, even if I managed to get a pit pass, and so decided that would just go, relax and see some bands. It was good and there weren’t many times when I really wished I was in the photo pit with a camera in my hand.
In terms of venues, there was a big change in the make-up from previous years. In the last two years, The Zoo has been like a second home, with all the other Brisbane venues way behind. This year it ended up with The Zoo tying with The Troubadour, at 12 gigs a piece, although The Troubadour comes out top on alphabetical order.
Some words about The Troubadour: The Troubadour was the first place I saw a gig in Brisbane, back in early 2005 when I spent over two weeks on an East Coast tour with The Hauntingly Beautiful Mousemoon. We drove up from the Gold Coast, drove two vans up the middle of Brunswick Street Mall, loaded in via the front steps, ate at that disgusting pizza/fried food place near 299, had a wander around whilst a few of the band went to do an interview at 4ZZZ, went for food at Asian Fusion on Wickham Street and were transfixed with Shaolin Soccer on the TV, the band played the gig and we then drove back to the Gold Coast straight after. It was also the first time I’d ever been stopped and breathalysed anywhere in a dozen or so years of driving.
My first gig after moving to Brisbane was at The Troubadour: Gentle Ben & His Sensitive Side supported by The Exiles and Texas Tea opening the night. I was so impressed by Texas Tea bought a copy of their demo CD for $5. Over the five years I’ve been in Brisbane I’ve had so many good nights at The Troubadour, both seeing bands and just hanging out after shows. It was the one safe port of call in the Valley and will be much missed.
The every year plan to try to get some bigger gigs has largely successful this year, with more gigs at The Tivoli than ever before as well as getting to photograph an ever-increasing number of the major festivals. However, I only managed one show at the BEC (Spandau Ballet & Tears For Fears) and only a couple at the BCC (Pixies and Status Quo).
The full breakdown for 2010 is shown in the pie chart below.
On top of the gigs I photographed there’s another 10 gigs I went to as a non-photographing punter, including ATP’s Bowlie 2 weekend back in Minehead, Laneway and Pavement at The Tivoli.
Photographic highlights of the year? Probably just getting to do a few of the festivals and having a really good time doing it, especially BluesFest, which was a great long weekend down the coast. Although Bob Dylan doesn’t do photographs, and hasn’t for at least 20 years, I’m hoping that I get the chance to photograph it again this year. Am open to offers…
Overall gig of the year was probably a tie between BluesFest, Soundwave and Splendour In The Grass, which really benefited from the much superior location up in Woodford. Other highlights were Massive Attack, Hope Sandoval, Dirty Three, Sixfthick and the Vegas Kings’ last show, which was so much better than Powderfinger’s last show on the same night.
There weren’t many musical lows in 2010, it was a good year for gigs, although the very average double-header of Kasabian and Little Red deserves a mention.
Photographic lows? Usually it’s any gig with rubbish/no lighting, but this year there was a noticeable increase in the number of gigs with contracts and/or first three, no flash rules, even at the smaller venues that usually don’t get affected by such stipulations. Peter Hook (and Friends) deserve a special mention for their show at The Tivoli, where the contract wanted me to sign over copyright of the photos I took to the band to do what they wanted with them. I didn’t sign so I didn’t photograph him. I bet Anton Corbijn and Kevin Cummins didn’t get treated like that when they were producing their iconic images of Joy Division.
I usually finish up these posts with a selection of personal favourite photos from the year, but it’s been really hard to do with so many blogs yet to be written; every time I write a catch up blog I find an image or two that I really like. The photo of Tim Burgess from The Charlatans at the top of this post is a personal favourite from the more recent blogs I’ve written. Maybe I’ll update this post properly when/if I ever finish off the photos and blogs for 2010.
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