Young and Restless - Evelyn Hotel

I was down in Melbourne visiting a friend and wound up at the Evelyn Hotel where Young & Restless impressed the pants off me. It's been a while since I've seen a band who just (and you'll have to excuse the cliché) rock out on stage, and Y & R definitely do that. Singer Karina jumping all over the stage, into the crowd and starting a mosh pit before crowd surfing her way into the encore.

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Small venue, but the lighting was great, quite crowded up near the front of the stage, not a lot of room to move around, and once the mosh started I moved back a bit to avoid injury

Where's Jerome? promo shoot

I was asked to do promo shots for up and coming Sydney band Where's Jerome? (myspace). It was my first attempt at this sort of photography and luckily I'll get another go at it at their upcoming gig on 15th Oct at the Hopetoun Hotel. I've learnt that next time I do this it'll be much better to shoot closer to sunset (or sunrise) as light can be incredibly harsh in the middle of the day. Either way, it will be fun. There's a nice little review of their first EP here

Maximo Park - Metro Theatre

Maximo Park were last in Sydney a little under two years ago and somehow I ended up standing in almost the exact same place at the exact same venue. Their frontman Paul Smith is very much the heart and soul of the band, jumping around the stage like a mad man, gesticulating wildly - I don't think I've seen so much finger pointing since Jarvis Cocker was last in town. Everyone (band and audience) had a great time.

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I didn't snag a photo pass for this one but managed to get into the front row, I managed to talk my way into the photo pit only to be stopped for entering when the security guy who said he'd let me in was moved elsewhere in the venue and his replacement was a little less flexible when it came my missing photo pass. I was stuck off to the left of stage with no room to move so there's nothing too fantastic here.

Hot Chip - Metro Theatre

A couple of years ago when I was living in London and going out to indie clubs way too much, Hot Chip were a name err... hot on everyone's lips. A couple of years later they're selling out decent sized venues on the other side of the planet. They're a great live act - although five dudes sitting behind keyboards/synths/sequencers isn't the most exciting thing in the world to watch (or photograph), they had the crowd going crazy.

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Hard to photograph these guys as they're all perched behind their keyboards etc, especially from down low in the photo pit, but they had some nice colourful lighting so I managed to get a couple of OK shots.

Patrick Wolf - The Factory

I kept missing Patrick Wolf while I was in London, so I was happy to hear that he was coming to Sydney. He did two acoustic shows, one on Friday night at The Basement and a Saturday night show at The Factory. It was quite low key, Wolf playing with either his violin, a troublesome ukulele or piano. I was expecting a bit more of an energetic performance, but it was still a damn good show (despite his obvious jet lag). He says he'll be coming back in September with his full band, so that should be a whole lot of fun.

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It was reasonably crowded up at the front of the stage, and I didn't want to annoy any of the hardcore fans by blocking their view for more than a few seconds so I didn't get anything amazing. Lighting was quite simple too so there isn't anything too dramatic here.

King Brothers at Spectrum

Insane Japanese punks. I couldn't understand a word they said/sung, I'm not even sure if they were singing in English or Japanese. Spectrum is not a large club but these guys didn't really care. They put on an awesome show and I was lucky to be there, before the end of the night one of their guitarists was dropped VERY hard while crowd surfing and a friend of mine sustained a mild head injury

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As always, not the best lighting at Spectrum, but it'd be virtually impossible not to get a great shot of these guys. Their bass player especially was the king of rock star poses. The venue wasn't packed so I had pretty free movement on either side of the stage.

Wilco - Enmore Theatre

I'm a relatively new Wilco fan, only getting into them (at a friend's constant urging) a few years ago a bit after Yankee Hotel Foxtrot came out. It's a been a while since they've been to Sydney and they rewarded their fans with a set in excess of two hours tonight. The set list was amazing, although it did get a tad self indulgent towards the end, but when they're this good it's quite forgivable. Anyway, if you want a write-up from someone who can write, click here.

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I couldn't get a photo pass for this one, but luckily there weren't any camera restrictions so I was able to get in and shoot to my heart's content. The only downside being that I was stuck in the middle of the crowd and had to shoot between people's heads (hence the occasional shadow in some of the photos). The lighting was fantastic and I would have loved to have been in the pit.

Jarvis Cocker - Metro Theatre

I lucked out as Jarvis decided to grace us with his divine presence at a side show thanks to the V Festival. He played a great set at the Metro. There were some hardcore fans out tonight and the line to the front entrance went all the way down the street before the doors even opened. A few people shouted out for Pulp songs during the set, but Jarv didn't comply. Playing most of the tracks from his new album plus a couple of b-sides (Big Stuff and One Man Show). At one stage someone threw a pair of Holeproof Underdaks up on to the stage, much to Jarvis' amusement. He closed the encore with a great cover of Bruce Springsteen's State Trooper.

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He had the same blue/purple lighting effects happening during the first few songs, but as I was in the front row and security didn't seem to mind about me taking photos I managed to get a few more shots through the set when the lights changed.

The Arcade Fire - St John's Church (2nd night)

Again at St John's Church and lining up for a few hours, but this time I was at the front of the queue and one of the first people into the venue. The band opened the night with an rousing acoustic version of The Clash's Guns of Brixton right in the middle of the crowd, I was too far away to even see it but it sounded amazing. Once they were on stage I spent the gig about 3 feet from Win Butler's rather large army boots but was able to avoid a wrathful stomping by only taking the occasional photo rather than snapping away constantly through their set. Although the set list doesn't show it, they closed it off with Tunnels which is possibly my favourite track from Funeral.

It was an amazing way to end my gig going in London, especially as I'm moving back to Sydney for good this coming Sunday. Bye London!

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The lighting seemed a bit dimmer this evening, it was all very basic indeed. Still, I think I managed to get a few good shots - I'd be embarrassed if I didn't at that range!

The Arcade Fire - St John's Church

I arrived in London just under two years ago and went straight from the airport (and a 24 hour flight from Sydney) to this particular gig. I was exhausted, but it still stands as one of the best shows I've ever seen. I'm flying home to Sydney for good this coming Sunday and was surprised to hear that The Arcade Fire were returning to play a series of shows during my last week in the country, even moreso when I realised that I missed out on tickets to every single show and saw tickets going for up to £500 per pair on eBay. No thanks. Still, I wanted to bookend my stay in London by seeing the most amazing live band in the world...

Luckily, the band decided to release 50 tickets per day at each of their London shows. From 12pm I waited outside the venue for the ticket release (it did have it's benefits though), I was #12 in line. Eight and a half chilly hours later I had my ticket and the band filtered onto the stage and it was all worth it. It was absolutely amazing, the band were in fine form playing songs mostly from their upcoming album Neon Bible, and filling out the set with songs from their first album. Oh and did I mention that they played in a church?

The gig ended with the band carrying their instruments outside through the audience, onto the church's steps and performing Wake Up with the whole crowd as backing vocals. It was definitely worth the wait.

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The venue was seated (no one sat) and I was about six rows from the front, so I spent a fair bit of time trying to shoot over/around/between waving hands and heads, so all of these photos are heavily cropped. There was no photo pit and the professional photographers were relegated to an upper balcony. I'm hoping to get into the first or second row when I do all this again on Wednesday and Thursday...