Tag Archive for "Bluejuice"
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Bluejuice are a band that’s yet to win me over, having seen them at last year’s Splendour and then a few months later supporting We Are Scientists at The Zoo. As Stav from the band kindly commented on that post (and which shamefully I didn’t get around to replying to), they’re obviously not my thing. And yet watching them this afternoon, even though I only see them for a few songs, I find myself warming to them more than before. It’s a much slicker performance that the one at The Zoo and the sound is a lot less grating than it was that night. Following Stav around the stage through my viewfinder, as he brandishes his mic stand I suddenly notice Jake out of the corner of my eye leaping theatrically off the fold-back speaker; I think I was the only photographer in the pit not primed and ready for it and that’ll teach me for not paying more attention. It’s the main jump that he does in the first three songs as well. He does a smaller jump in the second song but just from the stage and I’m the wrong side of him to really benefit from the second chance. What the photo gains from the position of the bass player is lost to the height of the stage and the encroachment of the fold-back speakers into the frame.
Bizarrely, given the size and strength of their own back-catalogue and the limited festival time-slot in which to play, You Am I start their set with a cover of Regurgitator‘s ‘I Sucked A Lot of Cock‘. However, after that it’s a real tour de force greatest hits set.Â
The band sound pretty rough though, partly due to the sound in the Supertop and partly because despite having played so many of these songs for so long they sound a bit ragged and under-rehearsed. They bring out Jack Ladder for ‘Heavy Heart‘, which is slowed down even more that the original and played  lounge-lizard style; again it’s a slightly baffling move, killing the momentum and the mood for a few minutes of self-indulgence, before a return to more up-tempo songs as they wind up their forty five minutes stage time. When they hit their stride they can still give any band a run for their money but they continue to perplex, maybe needing the inconsistency and left-turns to keep things interesting for them. They’re frustrating to photograph this afternoon, with Tim Roger’s hat brim keeping the light off his face, and Andy Kent and Davey Lane largely hidden in the shadows. Luckily there’s always Rusty Hopkinson and even luckier he always makes for some really nice photos.
Birds of Tokyo are one of those awful rock bands that Australians just seem to not be able to get enough of. They’re like those terrible non-descript soft rock bands that were popular in the UK in the late 1980s.  Some congratulations are in order though; given the amount of radio, tv and music magazine coverage they are a worthy addition to ‘The List‘.Â
From a new addition to ‘The List’ to a founding member; fellow Perth band Little Birdy.  Katie Steele’s fashion stylings are the stuff of legends; from never-ending, multi-day photo shoots, as she chops and changes between outfits until happy, to the inside of her apartment, which allegedly hardly a square inch of carpet showing from under huge mountains of clothes and shoes piled throughout the place. However, there are some people who should never wear leather trousers, probably most of the population to be honest, and Katie Steele is definitely one of them. And especially not with open toe sandal-type heels. Additionally, there must be something in the rest of the band’s contract which means that when they play live the only person who’s allowed to have any light on them is their lead singer.Â
It’s 7:30pm and there’s finally a band that I really want to see. The Special’s video for ‘Ghost Town‘ is one of my strongest childhood musical memories and it’s a complete thrill just to be having the chance to see them, let alone getting to photograph them. Whilst band reformations are so often a huge disappointment, especially when it involves changes to the line-up, as tonight does with founder member and songwriter Jerry Dammers not wanted by the rest of the band, tonight there is no disappointment and it’s a seemingly rare occasion of a reformed band actually living up to their reputation. It’s a truly exceptional display straight from the very first note and it’s startling watching a band whose members are all into their 50s put so much energy into their performance that it makes the rest of the bands who have played today pale into insignificance. And then there’s the songs. Even though they made heavy use of covers and reworkings of older ska songs, particularly on the first Specials album, it’s amazing looking at the quality of those first two records, ‘Specials‘ and ‘More Specials‘, which make up the bulk of tonight’s show; all killer, no filler. ‘Do The Dog‘, ‘A Message To You Rudy‘, ‘It’s Up To You‘, ‘Concrete Jungle‘, ‘Monkey Man‘, ‘Blank Expression‘, ‘Nite Klub‘ are amongst the songs played tonight and add on the non-album tracks of ‘Gangsters‘ and ‘Ghost Town’ and it’s a truly stunning hour of music. There’s always so much cynicism related to reformations, much of it well deserved, especially when the bands appear to just be going through the motions (yes Pixies, I’m looking at you), but if The Specials are going through the motions tonight I can’t even start to comprehend just how good they must have been 30 years ago. Really special.    Â
Afterwards there’s a bit of an argument between most of the photographers and the promoter’s rep, with the photographers convinced they’ve been short-changed and only got to photograph two songs, leading to the rep apologising. There’s no need though; we got our three songs fair and square, it’s just that they played the short version of ‘Too Much, Too Young‘ which barely makes it to two minutes. In retrospect I wish I’d switched to a wider lens as there was just so much happening right in front of you that the 70-200 lens just wasn’t the right choice. The most disappointing thing was that the lighting was pretty poor and with Terry Hall sulking around in the dark with his back to the crowd for the most part I didn’t get a very good a set of photos to do justice to just how good they were tonight.
All the 2009 Splendour photos are on Flickr and the individual band sets are in the following links:
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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It’s a leisurely start to the weekend at Splendour. Have some breakfast, Adam turns up at the hotel, we check, double-check, tripled-check that we all have everything we need for the day’s photographing and Adam drives us up to the site. Then we wave my media pass at various people working on the gate and completely blag our way onto the site and into the car park.
I get in early before the gates open with my pass and hang about at the entrance for Adam and Kylie to get their passes and get onto the site (although they end up having to come in as punters as the pass they were using over the weekend is waiting to be picked up from the VIP tent). I thought I’d get some photos of people coming through the gate, although somewhat sensibly security only let in small groups of people at a time. It then became a bit awkward taking photos of the crowd coming in, as the police and their sniffer dogs keep busting people in frame…
I have to pick up the numbered orange fluoro vest that all the photographers have to wear to get into the photo pit from the VIP tent and then just I hang out there waiting for the bands to start. I did post on TOMB when the line-up was announced that there was no way it was a $200 line-up and wondered where the money had been spent. I think the answer is the VIP tent, and it wasn’t even the real VIP area (with its chandeliers), located just behind the main stage.
The first band I photograph for the weekend is the much-hyped Galvatrons. Somehow they’ve managed to get some really high profile gigs in the UK, including Download and supporting The Police at Hyde Park (albeit on the second stage – they didn’t mention that in the PR…), plus they’re supporting Def Leppard and Cheap Trick later in the year in Australia. First mistake of the day is going to the wrong stage and missing the start of their set. The second mistake is having a can of V whilst waiting in the VIP tent as it makes my hands shake really badly during their set… I guess the third mistake is not wearing earplugs during their set… Despite the fact that most reviews seem to compare them to Van Halen you get the feeling that it’s purely lazy music journalism from people who only know one Van Halen song, as they seemed to use the ‘Jump’ synth sound on all their songs. Entertaining to photograph though, pulling out some photogenic rock moves, but don’t they and whoever signed them realise that The Darkness are soooo 2004.
Next band up are recent Dew Process signings, Tokyo Police Club. Dew Process have a strange roster of bands and watching them play you can’t help but think why Dew Process signed them when there are so many better bands on their own patch in Brisbane. They are not very exciting musically, a bog standard nu-post punk band, somewhere between Buzzcocks and Bloc Party, as if we haven’t had enough of those in the last few years. Not particularly inspiring to photograph either.
My plan for the day has me photographing The Delta Spirit next. However, much to my infinite regret I go and see Bluejuice instead, who I’d been told were really good to photograph. I am a bit disappointed with them, although I’m guessing they probably are more animated when one of their two singers doesn’t have a broken leg and and one of his arms strapped up. To be fair he still does give a really good go, although I manage to miss him jumping every time by not paying enough attention, but musically they just aren’t my thing.
After the three Bluejuice songs I head over the GW McLennan stage where Lightspeed Champion is the next band I have on my list to photograph. However, I catch the last couple of minutes of The Delta Spirit’s set and am bowled over by it, completely amazing. Have just enough time to take a few photos. As is typical, they played in Brisbane on the Sunday of Splendour (supporting Cold War Kids at The Tivoli), so I’ll have to wait until next time they come to Australia to catch them.
I then have security issues, with them saying that I don’t have the right pass (the one that says ‘Photographer’ in big letters) to be allowed into the photo pit. I ask the guy to check and he says no. I asked him very, very nicely and he radios someone who OKs it and so he then lets me into the pit.
Lightspeed Champion was good, with his songs having a very English acoustic-based Brit-Pop sound. Nice shorts/hat combo. I saw in NME (I think) recently where he was bigging up Calenture by The Triffids so he must be alright…
After a few songs it’s time to go and photograph Hadouken! over in the Mix Up tent. They are late coming on due to a long soundcheck but when they do start playing they are just a very poor man’s Pop Will Eat Itself for Generation Y. But without the humour… And probably without the extensive band merch selection…Â
They have the sound – indie/grime/rave, a bit like a lightweight Enter Shikari- and the look – umm, chav – that no one over the age of about 18 is really going to get excited about. I wonder if they bumped into The Fratellis backstage…
One day down, one to go. It was a long hard day. To bed at 1:20am last night, alarm at 6am to sort the photos to go to off for consideration for print and start editing and uploading a few to flickr. Â
The first batch of photos are here. Plenty more to come from yesterday plus all the photos from today. And I’ll also write some proper blogs in the next couple of days.
Devo
The Galvatrons
Hadouken!
The Fratellis
The Living End
The Music
Clare Bowditch
Lightspeed Champion
The Drones
Bluejuice
Polyphonic Spree
