Tag Archive for "Wolfmother"
I saw The Vines on their first UK tour at ULU in April 2002 (for bragging rights it was a shame I didn’t go see them a month earlier at the Camden Barfly…) and watched a really boring show in amongst an mostly arms-folded, unexcited crowd who were not being convinced that they were worth the column inches they were garnering in the UK music press, even less so after their tepid cover of ‘Ms Jackson’. Roll on six and half years and other than the fact that too many Australian festival promoters seem to think that they are deserving of high billing and they’re playing to a larger crowd, nothing much has changed. Take the spirit and passion from rock ‘n’ roll and you’re left with The Vines; predictable and pointless rock by numbers. The NME’s apology was long overdue… 4 albums and seven years down the track, they still aren’t as good as Brisbane’s Violent Soho.
It was a hard enough job photographing whirling dervish, Tahita Bulmer in daylight when New Young Pony Club played at V Festival. It is near impossible when they’re playing in a tent at night with low lighting, what lighting there is is red, and there’s an abundance of smoke. Most of the three songs allocation is spent hoping that she’ll stop still for a second or two so that my camera can focus. The other downside with energetic performers playing in the dark is that you spend so much of your time trying to photograph them you don’t get any of the rest of the band (although they were mostly lurking in the dark as well, a shame as the drummer and keyboard player are quite photogenic young ladies…)
Sigur Ros were another of the ‘know the name, heard about them, never heard them’ bands, which is probably something of a music fan faux pas in the modern world when a significant chunk of the recorded musical history of the world is available at your fingertips every time you sit at a computer. And largely for free if you don’t have any morals concerning downloading for free… When you see nothing but superlative plaudits for a band you end up with really high expectations, but I find them disappointing based on my expectations. Instead of the usual 3 song allocation we are given songs 2 and 3 to photograph in. Listening to the 1st song from the very side of the photo pit it does sound immense, and the use of violin bows on guitars make it look like it’s going to be a good photographic experience. But when we allowed to move into the front of the stage the violin bow disappears and the second song just doesn’t have the power of the first song. The lighting is very low and the stage very cluttered, making photographing tricky. The two songs seemed to be fairly short, although I’m not sure if it was just 2 parts of the same song. Either way it’s not really happening for me musically or photographically, so I duck out of the pit. Walking around the back of the Supertop tent towards the Mix Up tent the overall view is more impressive, and you get a much better sense of the stage set-up as opposed to the limited view you get from the photo pit with its very high stage. The reviews I have seen of their Splendour set and the shows they played in Sydney and Melbourne have been nothing but overwhelming acclaim and so I can’t help but feel that I’m missing out on something really special here, which is a source of real frustration.
Over in the Mix Up tent the final act for the weekend is The Presets. We get there with plenty of time to spare so I spend a bit of time taking a few photos of the crowd.
Having first seen The Presets at The Hopetoun in December 2004 (supported by Expatriate) when I was living in Sydney, they are a band that I always enjoy seeing play live. Live they are a much better prospect than on CD, with their recently released album ‘Apocalypso’ being a real disappointment to me, with so many of the songs on it seeming half-baked ideas that needed a lot more work on them to properly realise them as songs.
Things have changed a fair bit for them in those 3½ years. Back then they looked like this:
Now, with all the worldwide success, Julian can afford to buy really nasty pink fluoro jackets like this.
After the first three songs we’ve got no chance of getting out of the photo pit through the crowd, so we end up being escorted through the back of the tent and past the proper, chandelier-adorned, VIP tent.
One band to go and its Wolfmother. You can only assume that when they were booked as the headline act there was some assumption by the festival’s organisers that they might have some new songs to play or, heavens forbid, a whole new album to promote. Boy, did they get that wrong…
Despite playing some new songs when they played at the closing night of the Andy Warhol exhibition at GoMA they manage to play just about the same set, in the same order as they’d been playing for most of the last 4 years, with nothing new on offer this time.
Whilst their set probably isn’t as ragged as the GoMA set was, the main difference between their 2008 Splendour set and previous festival sets that I’ve seen them at is the total lack of chemistry between the 3 band members and the absence of any real sense of joy at playing a large show emanating from the stage. Seeing them up close from the photo pit it’s no surprise that the band’s split is announced a few days later and even less of surprise when it turns out that they split prior to the festival and only reconvened for one last time to play. Whilst they didn’t sink to the levels that The Stone Roses sank to when I saw their last gig at Reading in 1996 (nothing could be that bad…), and whilst they are a band that consistently failed to impress me, it is a set, like the Stone Roses Show at Reading, that will probably be talked about for some time to come in a combination of hushed voices and “I was there at the bitter end’ bragging rights from those that witnessed their final show. Final until the big money reunion in a few years time that is. Remember them as they were…
It’s been a long day of a long weekend so we don’t stick around to see the rest of their set after we get out of the photo pit. It’s straight back to Ballina, where the day’s photos are downloaded and the alarm is again set for 6am for pre-deadline editing…
Plenty of Sunday Splendour photos at Yahoo Music.
Just got back to Brisbane. Feeling a bit fuzzy due to lack of sleep. Here are some photos from Sunday at Splendour. A few more are on flickr. A more comprehensive set of photos on the way with some proper blogs.
The Grates
The Presets
Robert Forster
Vampire Weekend
The Vines
Wolfmother
Yves Klein Blue
The final additions to the 2008 Splendour In The Grass festival were announced recently, to go with the already announced list that I blogged about here, with the final 21 bands being as follows:
The Polyphonic Spree
The Drones
Bluejuice
Lyrics Born
New Young Pony Club
Yves Klein Blue
Tokyo Police Club
Little Red
Clare Bowditch
Robert Forster
Hadouken!
Bliss n Eso
Albert Hammond Jr
Paul Dempsey
Katalyst
Even
British India
The Galvatrons
Delta Spirit
Slot Machine
The Black Stars
One thing’s for sure, it’s no 2006 line-up, my only previous trip to the festival. It’s no 2005 line-up either. Or 2004. Or 2003… Overall it’s a very disappointing line-up. I presumed with The Breeders playing in Brisbane on the Monday after the festival that they would be playing, which would have been one plus point from the final announcement, but it seems not, unless they’re going to announce them as a ‘surprise’ last minute act.
Usually with Fuji Rock being the previous weekend their line-up is usually a good guide to who will be playing at Splendour, but not this year it seems, with the Fuji Rock line-up being far superior, both musically and from a photographic point of view.
The playing times don’t get published until a week or so before the festival so I’ll have to wait until then to start planning the weekend and who I’m going to photograph with military precision.
I have previously photographed 13 of the 47 bands playing:
Wolfmother (and seen/photographed them waaaaay too many times…)
The Presets
The Grates
Operator Please
Van She
The Panics
Mstrkrft
The Gin Club
The Drones
Lyrics Born
New Young Pony Club
Yves Klein Blue
Robert Forster
Whilst I plan on photographing a number of those bands again, I’m open to suggestions as to other bands that I have to see/have to photograph so feel free to tell me who I must go and check out.
Having been in Mildura when Brisbane’s Andy Warhol exhibition at GoMA started in December, with a set of Velvet Underground covers by Robert Forester, I was able to make the closing night show, which featured a 45 minute set by Wolfmother.
Times have changed since I first photographed Wolfmother back in May 2004 at The Hopetoun in Sydney. Back then they were the opening band on a bill with The Ross Orbit Stack and Vanlustbader headlining. This was their fifth ever gig and the first gig that I photographed in Australia, using a single roll of HP4 for the whole gig and only taking 6 or 7 shots of Wolfmother… Before there were afros, ipod adverts, double-neck Gibsons and Grammy Awards they looked like this:
As with any gig at The Hopetoun no one battered an eyelid at me taking photos; this time there was a contract to sign, the bottom of which was torn off and was given to the photographers as a receipt. One of the clauses was that I had to provide any photos that I might have taken if the band’s management requested me to do so. No mention of payment or anything. Based on recent experience, it feels like this is becoming a standard clause on concert photography contracts.
Although the $20 included entry to the exhibition, which closed off just before the band started, the place seemed fairly empty until the last half an hour. By the time they came on stage the place was packed. The set included some new songs, which made a bit of a change considering they have been playing the same set for much of the last four years. Although Andrew Stockdale has apparently been recording demos with Resin Dogs’ drummer Dave Atkins it hasn’t heralded a move away from a 1970s rock sound into hip-hop… The song definitely remains the same…
The fact that this was their first gig in 9 months really showed. They were pretty ragged, especially Andrew Stockdale’s voice, which was all over the place and coming nowhere near hitting the high notes. Still, the crowd lapped it up as you’d expect, even a pretty woeful cover of Lou Reed’s ‘Perfect Day‘, with Mick Ronson’s string arrangement replaced by widdly-widdly guitar playing…
There was a photo pit at the front but it was very crowded, with about ten photographers and four or five burly security guys. Additionally, lighting didn’t seem as good as when I photographed Buck 65 at one of the first ‘Up Late’ gigs. And on top of that I just seemed to be having one of those nights when my timing kept being off…
More photos on flickr.
Falls Festival photos from what seems like an age ago…
Drove down to Melbourne the day after Boxing Day for a couple nights. Tried to book somewhere to stay on the way but forgot that the cricket was on and got laughed at by lots of hostels when phoned them up. So ended up camping in Preston/Coburg…..
Spent the next day/evening in St Kilda/the City/Brunswick Street then up early the next day and off to Lorne for another 3 nights of camping… Despite the early start, stopping at Bunnings to get some wellies in case it rained, breakfast in Geelong, lunch in Dean’s Marsh and drinks in The Lorne Hotel mean we don’t get there until late and missed the first couple bands.
Highlight of the Friday night, and indeed one of the whole weekend, was Basement Jaxx.
Saturday was a bit of a blur of bands. CSS and The Vasco Era were great. Modest Mouse were disappointing (was having worst Johnny Marr fanboy moment ever during their set though and so the photos weren’t much cop either)… Am in love with the singer from The Audreys… Eskimo Joe were making me lose the will to live…
Sunday was more chilled than Saturday, helped by photographing less bands…You Am I and John Butler (yeah, i know…) were highlights.
Wolfmother were… Wolfmother… They’ve probably taken the whole thing a bit far by having a 6/12 Gibson SG (although, as was noticed by everyone, the 12 string neck wasn’t touched at any point). If they had done one less guitar solo they might have actually managed to do the New Year countdown on time… and not 12 minutes late. They came back on with You Am I and did a cover of “Baba O’Reily”. You got the impression that Wolfmother didn’t know the song, despite it being a classic rock song from the 1970s… They had minimal input and either Andrew Stockdale had the spirit of jazz in him, was deep in the juju and chasing the train…or he was trying to play a guitar solo in a really wrong key…..
Loads of photos on The Dwarf.
And a few below.
Wolfmother
You Am I
John Butler Trio
The Vasco Era
Saul Williams
CSS
Basement Jaxx
