Tag Archive for "Ed Kuepper"
The prospect of Chris Bailey and Ed Kuepper playing a series of mini-residencies – a three week tour, three shows a week, one each in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne at the same venues in each city – is an interesting and intriguing one, even though, based on past experience you know what you’re going to get. When you have Ed Kuepper playing guitar you’ve got a great start and you’re already at least 50% of the way there (and in all honesty probably a lot more than 50%). When you have Chris Bailey there, the initial 50% is unlikely to increase a great deal and a whole lot more likely to take from it.
In many ways the pair ‘owe’ us from the last time they appeared together on a stage in Brisbane – a hugely disappointing Don’t Look Back Performance of (I’m) Stranded, wildly different from any other Don’t Look Back show played anywhere ever in that not only do they not actually play the album but they also omit the title track, arguably their best known song and where Bailey and Kuepper barely acknowledged each other the whole time they were on stage. And tonight starts off excellently; a cover of Dylan’s Ballad Of Hollis Brown with Bailey sounding in really excellent voice. And this continues for the first few songs before Bailey reverts to his more typical role as punk pantomime dame. Some of his between song banter is actually funny, a lot of it is cringe-worthy, some of it’s very awkward, especially when he calls a woman in the audience a slag for making comment on his age, but his worst crime tonight is his need to keep songs going long after they should have finished, long after Kuepper has stopped playing, ad-libbing nonsensical gibberish lyrics: it’s as if he can’t end a song without having the final say.
Unsurprisingly Kuepper’s songs are the best on show tonight and the best received. Car Headlights and The Way I Made You Feel are particular standouts, although to be honest much of the material played tonight is unfamiliar, something that you can sense from the rest of the crowd. This may explain the amount of annoying in-song chat, something that which reaches unbearable levels for anyone wanting to actually listen to the music. As well as the Dylan opener, tonight’s set also includes covers of The Kinks’ The Last Of The Steam Powered Trains and a set closer of Stephen Sondheim’s Send In The Clowns. The only Saints’ songs on show tonight are from the post-Kuepper years; there’s nothing on offer from the classic first three albums and the times that brought the two musicians together.
Mess+Noise, who I was photographing for tonight, decided to cover a show in each of the three weeks they were playing their weekly residencies, one in each of the three cities that the tour visited. I guess when the decision was made, there was an anticipation that playing the same venue in each of the three cities over three consecutive weeks would mean a variation in the setlist, maybe not from night-to-night, but at least from week-to-week. Reading the reviews, there didn’t seem to be many changes over the three weeks, with a core set of songs played at each show. Apparently one of the Melbourne shows did get Messin’ With The Kid and Erotic Neurotic: by all accounts Melbourne also got an amazing Don’t Look Back show last year so maybe they just don’t like playing old Saints’ songs in Brisbane.
As Mess+Noise also sent a photographer to each of the three shows it reviewed, and it was interesting to compare the photos. I was in a slight disadvantage in covering the first show they were reviewing, and even more so since it was under the ultra red lights of The Troubadour. It meant being torn between doing what I considered the right thing, and making all the photos black & white to vanquish the overwhelming redness and make the photos look the best they could, and wanting to provide a website with colour photos. In the end I made the wrong choice and only sent them a couple black & white photos, although I then made the majority of them black & white for my own archives. And of course the following week, Dan Boud covers the Sydney show and does them in glorious and very contrast-y black & white and the photos look really fantastic. By observation, Robert Carbone got the luck of the draw when it came to the Melbourne show, with a venue with good lighting and his colour photos have a fantastic vibrancy to them.
More photos from first show at The Troubadour on Flickr.
I don’t think I’ve ever given a support band a separate post, normally just including the headliner and all the support band musings and photos all in the one post. But tonight Ed Kuepper hinted that this might be the last time that we get to see Laughing Clowns and as it’s been such a pleasure seeing them a couple of times over the last year (at ATP Mount Buller and at GOMA) I thought they deserved a post of their very own. Plus I really like some of the photos that I took of them tonight.
More photos on Flickr.
Following on from their ATP Australia shows, Laughing Clowns returned to Brisbane to play their own show as part of the Up Late season for the GoMA’s Optimism exhibition. It was another excellent performance from the band, and one that was surprisingly well attended. There probably weren’t as many people as at Wolfmother’s gig at the closing night of the Warhol exhibition last year but it was still an impressively large audience.
In the five previous times of photographing Ed Kuepper in his various guises – Pig City, Pauhaus Festival, Don’t Look Back and twice at ATP Mt Buller – I’ve never really got anything that I was happy with. He’s an infuriatingly hard subject to photograph well, as he tends to rock back and forth whilst hunched over and plays with his eyes shut. And from my experience this is usually happening in the dark and/or accompanied with plenty of smoke. Getting photos of him isn’t the problem; it’s just getting something more than the extremely ordinary and mundane.
The winning strategy, as I discover tonight, is to photograph him between songs, when he’s stood at the microphone, eyes open, arms waving and engaging with the crowd. This strategy also has the advantage of being able to watch and enjoy the gig before going into a 30 second photo mode between songs, a nice change from watching a gig through a camera viewfinder. I have used this method before, it can be very useful when photographing in dark venues as it’s easier to get a sharp image of someone at very low shutter speeds when they’re stood reasonably stationary at the microphone between songs.
As a result of using this approach, it was also one of those nights where you push the shutter release button and KNOW you’ve got a good photo; reviewing them on the LCD screen with that sense of excitement at having nailed it and the giddy anticipation for getting the photos downloaded and processed. Of course LCD screens are notoriously poor places to review photos, as it’s invariably followed by the disappointment of viewing them on a proper computer screen and realising that they’re not actually as good as they looked on the camera screen. It was no different this time, with the onscreen images not having the same saturation and glow of the photos previewed on the camera screen, but I was still happy to have finally gotten a few decent photos of Ed.
I read in his Guardian blog that Everett True had his issues with the gig though. Having seen Neil Young twice in four days after a gap of 12 years and Iron Maiden twice in a year after a gap of 17 years I can see where he’s coming from. For me it was about not being able to replicate the excitement and enthusiasm after so many years of waiting and anticipation for the first show in such a relatively short time for the second show. Not having had the luxury of seeing Laughing Clowns back in their original glory days I’d be more than happy to see them anytime soon (although they’re only playing in Sydney and Melbourne in May) and not have to wait 23 years, where as I think I need a few years until I see Neil Young and Iron Maiden again.Â
Some more photos on flickr.
The Don’t Look Back series of concerts finally made it across to Australia this month, although in typical and familiar fashion Brisbane got the rough end of the deal with only one concert – the double bill of Died Pretty playing ‘Doughboy Hollow’ and Ed Kuepper playing ‘Honey Steel’s Gold’ – missing out on the famed Sonic Youth ‘Daydream Nation’ set that even Perth and Adelaide got to see, and also The Scientists playing ‘Blood Red River’. Â
Having now photographed Ed Kuepper three times (solo and acoustic at the Pauhaus Festival, with The Saints at Pig City and tonight), there are a number of things I have learnt:
1. He doesn’t like lights;
2. He plays 90% of the set with his eyes shut; and
3. He constantly rocks back and forth (whilst playing in the dark).
Was also the third time of photographing Ron Peno (both other times with him playing in the Darling Downs with Kim Salmon) and the main reason I wanted to photograph this gig. He may have fallen from the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down but there is still something extremely photogenic about him, and as a photographer he gives you a lot to work with.Â
However, it was a pretty disappointing lighting set up with strong backlighting and very little front lighting for the three songs I was allowed to photograph, so most of the photos weren’t that special. A couple of ok-ish shots where the backlighting and silhouetting work well and remind me of the work of probably my favourite music photographer, Herman Leonard.
More photos on flickr.
W/e before last was Pauhaus. No quick way in so had to queue up for 35 minutes so whilst got to see second half of Violent Soho’s set missed my 3 songs to photograph them in. Considering how good the lighting rigs are on all three stages at The Powerhouse the lighting wasn’t as good as hoped it would have been. The main stage had a massive wall of backlighting that just seemed to be in your face all the time and the smoke machine behind the drum kit meant drummer photos were difficult. Then the smoke just seemed to drift at head height across the stage to cover the rest of the band….
Also was feeling tired and uninspired so worst photos taken in a long, long time. That’s just how it is sometimes….
Ed Kuepper was the highlight of the day. Had never seen him before. Really, really want a photo pass for Pig City now…. [Edit: And even more so having seen The Apartments last night]. So if anyone knows of anyone wanting some photos done of the day point them in my direction….
Some photos here and some photos here
Some of the (possibly) better photos…
Yves Klein Blue
Operator Please
Whons Phreely
Macromantics
Dave McCormack
The Panics
Ed Kuepper
The Grates
