We actually had a summer this year, too much of a summer for some of us but you have to make the most of it, droughts and all. It gave Allan a chance to get out and do something a little bit different with his gig photos. He’s probably the best person to tell you about the differences between his usual work and outdoor gigs during a long hot summer.

You spend the winter in dingy basements trying to wring the maximum out of your camera’s sensor in terrible lighting conditions and then you emerge blinking like a mole into the outdoors in the spring with a whole new set of challenges to contend with, but they’re good challenges. The increase in light levels creates opportunities for much sharper photos with better depth of field and freezing motion. Basically, you have more options to play with. Here are a few shots from this year’s outdoor gigs, including three from the summer sessions in the courtyard at St Martin-in-the-Fields.

Amy Taylor @St Martin-in-the-Fields

This is a really interesting gig; it’s in the courtyard of the church and it’s free admission with artists provided by Talentbanq. You can sit down in the sun and listen to great live artists and you can buy a coffee, a beer or wine and a snack and soak up the atmosphere. It’s fascinating to watch tourists and Londoners wander past, hear the music and decide to come in to hear what it’s all about. On this day, Amy opened up the proceedings  at noon. When she walked on stage the courtyard was empty, twenty minutes later it was half full and in another fifteen minutes it was packed. What was really interesting was that Amy’s original songs had a better reception than the few covers that are obligatory at gigs like this. It was fascinating to watch a gig build up like this.

Ags Connolly @Folk in the Park, Sutton

Folk in the Park was a festival in Sutton, Surrey put together by Sound Lounge owners Hannah White and Keiron Marshall, two very talented people who are totally committed to live music. The music was virtually non-stop throughout the day with two stages alternating to keep the interest high. The night ended with a storming set from The Magic Numbers, but there were lots of great artists performing on both stages during the day. Phil Hooley performed on the Folk/Americana stage and Dan Owens put in a storming show on the main stage, but my favourite photo of the day was of the Ameripolitan artist Ags Connolly, who was also having a belated birthday celebration.

Zoe Wren @St Martin-in-the-Fields

I spent a bit of time here over the summer, mainly because it was a lovely place to be listening to live music on warm summer days. When I first photographed Zoe, she was the archetypal singer-songwriter with an acoustic guitar but she’s added a few more elements to her repertoire now, including a loopstation occasionally, which broadens out her sound a little. She has a great collection of original material including the classic ‘London Town’ and has a few well-chosen covers for gigs like this one.

Hollie Cook @High Tide, Twickenham

High Tide Festival in Twickenham has been steadily building up over the last few years since Phil Penman and Kevin Jones from Eel Pie Records started the event in 2019. It’s a one-day event with a main stage at the end of the High Street and loads of satellite venues running smaller stages. The programming for the festival is always eclectic and even showcases up-and-coming local bands. It’s a fabulous family event and each of year I’ve shot there, the weather has been perfect. This year Hollie Cook was headlining the main stage with her reggae style that was just perfect for a glorious July day. This one was always going to be a colour shot.

Natalie Shay @St Martin-in-the-Fields

I’ve seen Natalie play in a wide variety of indoor and outdoor and watched over the years as her songwriting’s developed. She’s always been a confident performer and she knows how to go onstage and win over an audience. She’s also a very physical performer and seems to be in constant motion. Using a high shutter speed to freeze the action also meant that background distractions were out of focus and minimised.

Well, we gave Allan a free pass with his photos this year and he’s split the black and whites into male and female artists. Here are the female artists:

Midori Jaeger

This was shot at Pizza Express in Holborn at a gig to launch Daisy Chute’s latest single “Give Thanks”. I’d shot Midori before (at another Daisy Chute gig) and I knew what I was trying to capture this time around. She did a solo mini-set where I got in close, but this shot was taken from further back and it works because I think it captures Midori’s look and something of her personality. I have to say at this point that some of the artists are connected in various ways. Here’s Midori.

 

Karen Grymm-Regester (Dana Immanuel and the Stolen Band)

Heard of Dana Immanuel and the Stolen Band? You should have; they’re one of my favourite bands. I love the songs, but I really love photographing the band because they’re always visually stunning. It doesn’t matter how good or bad the lighting is, at least one member of the band will create a really striking image. I wish I could say that I patiently waited for Karen to create the finger shadows, but it wouldn’t be true; I only saw the three stripes when I was editing, but I knew then that it was a special shot.

Hannah Wood (Sound of the Sirens)

What can I say about Hannah? She’s half of Sound of the Sirens, another one of my favourite bands. I love photographing the band; Hannah and her oppo Abbe Martin are equally photogenic and I always come away from one of their gigs with interesting shots. This one at Canary Wharf was a little bit special. The lighting helped because it was just at the point where there was some daylight and the stage lighting had just kicked in. It looks a bit like a really high shutter speed to freeze the action, but it was actually Hannah frozen in a moment that she had created. Just pleased I was ready for it.

Barbara (Basia) Bartz (Dana Immanuel and the Stolen Band)

I know; another Stolen Band member. I love this band (see above) and I almost feel like a stalker now at their gigs. I probably like this one because most of my shots of Basia are action shots and this looks quite contemplative. And there’s a little connection here that I discovered earlier this year. Basia’s a good friend of Midori Jaeger (above), who I photographed for the first time earlier this year.

Natalie Shay

Natalie’s another artist that I’ve seen and photographed many times. I realised earlier this year that I didn’t have a good shot featuring her characteristic flick of her very, very long hair. So, on a Saturday evening in May this year I set out for the Leake Street vaults under Waterloo Station on a mission to get the hair flick shot (which has absolutely nothing to do with “Allo, Allo”). The lighting was minimal but just good enough, so I managed to get a result. A bit of a single-minded expedition maybe, but it’s a welcome addition to the portfolio.

Putting aside the fact that all of these five people are incredibly photogenic, they have something else in common; they’re all absolutely lovely people that I always look forward to meeting.

 

 

 

 

During the weekend of The Great Escape Festival virtually the whole of the UK music business moves to Brighton for a few days; the streets are full of musicians hauling gear round on various wheeled appliances and every pub and club has a live music line-up. With all of those musicians around, why not put together a daytime event with musicians in Brighton for TGE and a few others shipped in for the occasion. Well, that’s exactly what happened in Caffe Nero (huge supporters of unsigned talent) with the help of Talentbanq (also huge supporters of unsigned talent). The concept’s really simple; two days of live music with two artists appearing every hour between 10:00am and 7:00pm for two days. That’s 36 artists over two days. I only did the Thursday but saw a mind-blowing array of talent.

The fun kicked off at an unearthly hour; singers generally don’t like morning gigs but Cloudy Galvez and Penny Riviera totally owned the first hour of the day. Cloudy’s improvisational style followed by Penny’s raw, smoky torch songs started the day off perfectly and set the tone for what was to come. As the day unfolded there were superb performances across a wide range of musical styles from the delicate whimsy of Jasmine Rogers to the looping wizardry and powerhouse vocals of Lawrence Hill and Mark Sullivan. Zoe Wren combined folk and jazz, Louise Golbey and Ky Lewis added a bit of soul while Nuala and Lots Holloway powered through their respective sets in the usual barnstorming style.

Bringing events to a perfect close, Joe Slater gave his usual passionate performance of his own beautiful and spiritual songs and a cover of George Harrison’s “My Sweet Lord” before Natalie Shay ended the day with her own powerhouse performance. My only regret was that I had to miss day two; the idea of loads of hungover music biz types being assailed by caffeine and the phenomenon that is Hollie Rogers. I think that might actually wake the dead. Anyway, I think we’ll be doing it all over again at the Caffe Nero stage at Cornbury Festival in July.