I covered a few events for Manchester International Festival in July – this included a number of interviews with notable industry types and live performances by artists and bands of all shapes and sizes. The highlight for me was Dave Haslam’s interview with Bernard Sumner, in which Bernie pulled no punches when describing his relationship with Peter Hook. Ain’t gonna be no reunion!
Evidence:
Sinead O’Connor!
Bernard
LoneLady
Snoooooooop D Oh double-G
Here are some images from the first Ben & Jerry’s Sundae in the Park at Heaton Park, Manchester, this July. It was another good selection of music and free ice cream. I’m not a massive fan of Gary Numan, but when I saw him walking round in the artists’ area in a Nine Inch Nails t-shirt, I thought I would give it a chance. That was a good decision… Ash rocked, Fun Lovin’ Criminals grooved, Maximo Park bounced and Ocean Colour Scene took us back.
Evidence:
I shot these three bands for Rock Sound on Wednesday:
Attack! Vipers!
Circa Survive
Thursday
It wasn’t as busy as I thought it would be, but that was probably because most of the styoodents have buggered off home for the Easter holidays.
This was a mission. Originally, this gig was supposed to happen at Kro Bar. Easy enough, I thought. I phoned up to check the stage times and they had no idea what I was going on about. Much Googling later, I found that the gig had been moved to a place called Gullivers. Pirates, parrots and eye patches sprung to mind. It took me the best part of an hour to find a working telephone number, let alone an address for the place, but I got it in the end.
Anyway, I’d almost lost the will to live by that point, unlike End of a Year’s Patrick Kindlon, who looked like he was actively fighting off sure death in the form of a particularly bad case of the lurgy – for someone so ill, he had bags of energy.
Kids in Glass Houses played the Academy back in November. Everything was very dark and very purple, which made things a little difficult to shoot. What little light there was came from the back, naturally!
I first shot this band at the Star and Garter, about 5 years ago – a pokey hole of a venue, nut one that lets you get up close and personal with the bands. This has changed over time, as the venues they play have increased in size and the distance from the crowd has widened, but their energy has remained.
Aled seems to look ill all of the time these days – too many late nights have given him dark eyes like mine. Oh dear.
Mid-air geetar shredding: frozen. I was getting the crap kicked out of me at the front, so I set up on the side of the stage for a couple of minutes and got this.
I’m pretty happy with this.
Sunday’s Sundae, like last year, wasn’t quite as great weather-wise, though the rain did hold off this time around and spirits remained high. I’d seen a number of nutcases running around in practically nothing over the course of the day and it became apparent why, when they took to the stage in the afternoon to promote the Pants to Poverty line of, er, pants.
Even Billy Bragg got in on the action…
Rounding things off were Doves, who prompted a somewhat civilised, yet mildly worrying rush to the stage area for their set. Hit after hit flowed, with a superb finale in ‘There Goes The Fear’. No messing, no encores.
Shaky video of the outro to ‘There Goes The Fear’ (680KB)!:
After this, it was a swift pint in VIP, then a brisk walk to Clapham Common underground for my journey home to sunny Manchester. Another good weekend’s work.
I got an unexpected call a week or so back from Ben (or was it Jerry?) asking if I could go down to London again and photograph the events at the annual Ben and Jerry’s Sundae on the Common in Clapham.
Thinking of how much free ice cream there would be (particularly the Chocolate and Manadamia – yummy!), I jumped at the chance to do it again. Then I immediately resolved to not overdo it like I had last year and limit my intake of frozen dairy product. It was like when I was a kid and ate too much, then wondered why I had tummy ache (Mum…make the pain go away!).
Some of the usual suspects were there, like the Air Guitar Dudes and Tall Info Guy on Stilts:
On Saturday afternoon, there was a giant Fairtrade pass-the-parcel. I think the idea was that it would last around 10 minutes before the prize (a golden ticket entitling one lucky punter to a year’s supply of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, if I recall), hidden in the middle, would be won.
I think it took me all of 30 seconds to leg it from the back of the stage to the crowd, by which point, chaos had ensued and the prize had been grabbed!
My highlight was Idlewild, who came out of their (6 month?) hiatus to take up second slot on the bill. It was a greatest hits set, for which the sun shone and the crowd bounced, me included.
Not wanting to blow my own trumpet, but they still have one of my shots hanging up somewhere – first photograph I ever sold. I should dig it out…ANYWAY…more importantly, the band isn’t finished – they’ll be back towards the end of the year. THAT, is good news.
Having over-eaten slightly the day before, I decided to take it a little easier on Sunday…
Red Light Company
Spirits dampened? No chance, when you have a Ben & Jerry's poncho and ice cream!
Air Guitar Heroes?
"But Mum, it's freezing!"
The Futureheads
Harriet Lamb of the Fairtrade Foundation discusses the organisation with festival-goers
The Human League take everyone back to the 80s
View the full set on Flickr.