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» The Great Escape 2009 (part one)

The Great Escape 2009.

Bit late in the uploads to this blog but I covered The Great Escape for Source Magazine this year, after several years of doing it for the PR company running it. Its always an interesting experience but normally involves a hell of a lot of feeling bad bouncing past the ordinary punters in the massively long queues- as it really is just more of an industry showcase than any kind of thing for the ‘man on the street music fan’.

On the first night almost every venue I tried to get to was so full that you stood no chance of getting anywhere near a band to get photos. The organisers pick some really good, intimate venues that turn into sweaty masses of bodies- with the occasional industry type- you can spot them immediately as they tend to be rocking a very shitty combo of blazer and too new jeans, iphone and a bored look on their faces. Anyways trying to get through the crowd at Sumo/WaterMargin/Jam with a camera packed backpack to see ‘They Promised Us JetPacks’ I realised it was just never gonna happen like that- it was just a mass of heaving bodies- though the band sounded pretty good although I couldn’t see them at all- and neither could maybe 80% of the people in their as the venue doesn’t have a stage as such, just a slightly raised area. I wandered to Audio, and the rain was now properly throwing down on me. I eventually decided to jack in the digital set-up that I had- and go back to the studio I picked up my trusty old Canon T90 a camera that used to be glued to my hands, but that hadn’t been used in at least 2 years- probably longer. I stuck the 1.4 FD 50 mm lens on, and loaded up a roll of fuji neopan 400, rated at iso1000 in camera (getting the lab to push it when developing).

The T90 is a great camera, its manual focus lens which is something I am not used to in gig photography nowadays- but I wanted to slow myself down and think a bit more about what I was shooting, its heavy as a brick and can take a real battering and still seems to work, this one has been dropped down a flight of stairs, and had numerous pints chucked over it but still seems to be going strong. Pretty much every gig I got to had a tonne of photographers at it- seems like the press pass was easier to apply for than last year- and if you couldn’t get one by applying it seemed that I fair few people I knew took the route of just printing one out on the home computer- as it as just a piece of clip art on a white sticker.

I saw some great bands though, a nice mix of new and familiar The Lyrebirds stood out for me, Youves had lot going on and a lot of presence though they did seem to go a bit nuts everytime they saw a camera, British Sea Power where one of the highlights – apart from Noble using my neck as a spring board to launch himself at the crowd. Ghost of a Thousand were really great at Revenge- but surely need to be playing to bigger audiences by now. Maccabees at Corn Exchange were definitely one of the best things I have seen in the past year at least- a really strong band that have grown together and the new songs were a triumph- as was Hugos guitar playing and stage presence , they really are going to be a huge in the rest of 2009- but they still seem to have an intimate feel to everything they do. I am gonna stop rambling now as its meant to be a bout the pictures and I have a backlog of stuff to post this week in the blog, including a past shoot I assisted on for Avangelist (Andy Parker), and a new fashion editorial at Saltdean lido. Lots to cover- so will get fully up on the blog thing now- and not be so slack at updating it.