Gubbins from this year’s Manchester International Festival, some Rock Sound stuff and Ben and Jerry’s in the (hopefully sunny!) Park.
In other news, I went to the Tate Modern recently. It’s one of those places that helps take your mind of other things that you can’t get your head around, by making you concentrate on other stuff that you can’t work out either.
I didn’t ‘get’ most of what I saw, but some of it I liked, without knowing why. This is an example of something that fell into both categories – possibly because a decent string of words happened to flow by, just as I took the shot.
Geek stuff: taken with iPhone 3GS, processed in the Instagram app, with tilt-shift effect and Hefe filter.
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)!:
doves_benandjerrysundae
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.