When I were a lad . . . namechecked by Classic Rock (almost)
A strange thing happened last week that took me right back to my youth, when my hair was longer (and thicker), when I was just starting to shave and when I was listening to . . . well, pretty much the same bands I’m still listening to now.
Rush, Queen, Genesis, AC/DC, Yes, Kiss, UFO, Magnum, Maiden, Zeppelin . . . the list goes on and on . . .
At the age of 15 I was an avid reader of Sounds and later of its offshoot Kerrang! How I wish I’d kept my first copy of Kerrang! It must be worth a fortune now.
There was one writer in there I’d take a lot of notice in particular of, one Geoff Barton.
I particularly remember his Sounds review of Kiss Alive II which he proudly declared to be the best live album of all time. Quite some claim and I’d not necessarily agree, but it stuck in my mind and must have worked because I bought and loved that album.
Anyway, fast forward to the present day: past exams, first job interviews, marriage, children, divorce and a number of rock ‘n’ roll-themed adventures and here we are in 2011 and . . . I almost get a namecheck from the mighty Barton himself!
Geoff is now Editor At Large for Classic Rock magazine and regularly contributes to its blog.
And I was more than a bit surprised, and delighted, to see that he was highlighting and quoting from my recent interview with Judas Priest bassist Ian Hill in a Classic Rock blog entitled KK Downing chose golf over Priest.
It’s not my only Classic Rock connection. I’ve had one letter printed in there and had one of my questions put to Kiss for a feature.
But this is the nearest I’ve got to having an actual creative contribution included.
Now, if only Geoff would take a look at RocktasticPix.com, eh?!
* An interesting development: K.K. Downing has come out and said that Ian Hill’s claims were inaccurate and that “the people from the press had no license to jump in and take what they thought was a cheap scoop out of what Ian thought the situation was“.
Just for the record, Ian’s comments were as delivered and I only used one quote about the golf course . . . in paragraph 10. Hardly sensationalising or scooping.
Fa, Fa away . . . yet only one degree of separation from Jimmy Page
So, I’m in this tiny village, Fa, in the south of France. No phone signal, no wi-fi, no Facebook, no Twitter. Rural seclusion/exclusion in the extreme. And foreign too.
C'est moi a la Cafe de Fa!
And yet . . . well, read on . . .
I’m there to help celebrate my friend Eddie’s 50th year, and that of his not-entirely ungorgeous girlfriend Claire (who in no way whatsoever looks her age).
Anyway, I digress.
Ed introduces me to Rod. We may, it appears, have something in common.
So, er, Hi Rod. Do you play an instrument then?
Apparently so. Rod plays guitar. And was in Tina Turner’s touring band. And in the Nashville Teens (the original Tobacco Road anyone?) and used to jam with Jimmy Page when he lived in Surrey.
A little while later I am sandwiched between Rod and Eddie in the small but perfectly-formed Cafe de Fa, as we play the Kinks’ greatest song, Waterloo Sunset.
And it strikes me that – in the spirit of the whole ‘five degrees of separation from Kevin Bacon’ thing – I am, at this very moment, just one, mere, insignificant degree away from bestriding the stage with the Pagester himself.
If that’s going to happen anywhere it might as well be in this enclave in deepest, darkest France, where, it is said, more than an eighth of the population is ex-pat Brit and almost all of those seem to be made up of artists, painters, poets, actors and musicians.
And piss artists. If you count me . . .
CD/DVD review: Def Leppard – Mirrorball
Now here’s an odd thing to review, a CD that I love . . . which I can’t see as anything but entirely pointless. This is going to take some explaining . . .
What we have here is a live CD recorded during Leppard’s 2008-2009 Sparkle Lounge Tour, which, of course took in a triumphant return to Donington for Download 2009.
There are also three new studio recordings (more of which later) and a 50-minute tour documentary DVD plus a couple of promo videos.
First of all the facts. After 34 years, this is Def Leppard’s first ever “official’ live album – that’s if you ignore the slightly ropy Don Valley Stadium recording they included with the limited edition release of their Vault best-of in 1995 and the rather stonkingly good Pyromania tour CD which comes with the Deluxe Edition CD of that landmark album.
And the tracklisting is to die for . . . knocking off Rock! Rock! (Till You Drop), Rocket and Animal within the first 12 minutes alone!
Leppard completely take ownership of David Essex’s Rock On, show their acoustic licks with Two Steps Behind and Bringin’ On The Heartbreak and bring things to a cataclysmic finale with Photograph, Pour Some Sugar On Me, Rock Of Ages and Let’s Get Rocked. Phew!
It’s a great live album. No question.
But the question I do have is this . . . a double live album in 2011? What’s the point?
You see what I couldn’t help thinking is that the CD portion of this package would serve as a much better companion piece to a full concert DVD/Blu-ray from the tour. You know, the DVD for at home and the CDs for in the car.
What makes it even more tantalisingly frustrating is the glimpses we do get of the band in action on the accompanying DVD – Rock! Rock! (Till You Drop), Armageddon It, Pour Some Sugar On Me and Hysteria look and sound magnificent.
But why only the four tracks? Why, why, why? I just don’t get it.
Don’t get me wrong, the documentary is fine – an amusing and entertaining look at life on the road including bumping into old buddies Billy Idol and Steve Stevens backstage, taking part in the, ahem, Country Music Awards in the States and the sheer tear-inducing emotion as Joe Elliot reintroduces the Donington audience to one Rick Allen, 23 years after that performance.
Maybe I’ve been spoiled by some of my recent Blu-ray concert purchases – Chickenfoot and AC/DC in particular.
Because while I do love this three-disc package (the first two discs are on non-stop in the car) I can’t help but feel that these are the bonus tracks and someone’s forgotten to package the main feature.
What just about redeems the Leps are the three new studio tracks. Well, two of them, anyway.
Undefeated is all balls-out machismo, kicked off by a tribal (dare I say it?) Glitter Band drum track and a featuring a chest-thumpingly catchy chorus.
Kings Of The World IS Queen.
No, really. If you thought Rick Savage’s song Love on the Songs From The Sparkle Lounge album was the last word in Queen worship then be assured he was only warming up back then.
Kings Of The World sees Bohemian Rhapsody crashing headlong into We Are The Champions. It’s big, bold, insane and utterly, utterly wonderful.
The last of the new songs It’s All About Believin’ promises so much and then grabs defeat (or maybe just a no-score draw) from the jaws of victory. The build-up hints at something quite magnificent, a modern hard rockin’ take on a U2-style riff for the first 49 seconds which then just turns into something, well, rather ordinary.
So my conclusion? Well, I’m just not sure. All I do know is there must be hours upon hours of live video footage just waiting for the big Blu-ray treatment.
Go on lads, you know you want to . . .
CD Review – Black Country Communion 2
It’s not all about music photography here at Rocktastic Towers, it’s about the music too. I’ve been sitting on a copy of Black Country Communion 2 for a couple of months now, sworn to secrecy “until June”.
Well, hoorah! June is with us at last and, come tomorrow, so will the succinctly titled ’2′
Glenn Hughes, the band’s erstwhile leader, singer and bassist, has no doubts as to the merits of ’2′, telling me back in April: “I think this album is deep. What you hear on this album is a finely tuned machine . . . and that’s from a band that’s only done two shows.”
I was lucky enough to be at one of those two shows, the first ever full Black Country Communion concert at Wolverhampton Civic Hall on December 29, 2010 (Read my Black Country Communion concert review) and can immediately confirm that ’2′ marks a step forward for the band, more focused, more ambitious, more . . . “widescreen” for want of a better word.
And I wonder, just wonder, if I might have played some small part in the creation of ’2′. Chatting to Glenn I’d mentioned, for me, the moment at which the album opened up to wider vistas.
At the time that was track four (as was), The Battle For Hadrian’s Wall. Now with the commercial release of the album, the running order has been updated and this song makes an earlier appearance, with a few of the others shuffled around. The album is all the better for it (bar the strange omission of the album’s original five-minute closer, Crawl).
Here are my track-by-track thoughts on Black Country Communion 2:
1. The Outsider
Pure Glenn Hughes for the thunderous opener, this picks up the baton where the first album left off. It’s clear early on too that Derek Sherinian’s keyboards are going to enjoy a much higher prominence on ’2′. There’s an amazing guitar/keyboard duel between Sherinian and Bonamassa which is the Purplest thing that Deep Purple never recorded!
2. Man In The Middle
The second single from the album, with a cool syncopated beat and great vocal performance from Hughes. The first track on the album to feature am Eastern influence – there’s quite a lot of that about.
3. The Battle For Hadrian’s Wall
Joe Bonamassa picks up the lead vocals on this acoustic-led number and it is here that the album truly does go “widescreen”. It reminds me very much of Led Zep 3 with its folksy vibe, quite a departure for BCC at this point and a thing of beauty.
4. Save Me
The Led Zeppelin influence is clearest on this one. Built around an insistent rhythm which Jason Bonham had trialled with Jimmy Page and Robert Plant when there were talks of a possible new Led Zeppelin recording, this one grows and grows. Once the chorus is in your head it will not let go.
5. Smokestack Woman
If you’ve only ever seen Hughes play bass then you may be surprised that this stonking riff was originally wrestled out of the guitar by him before being handed over to Bonamassa. Dedicated to an (apparently imaginary) Black Country babe there is a definite Stones/AC/DC vibe to it.
6. Faithless
Another “widescreen” song originally from the pen of Hughes, there’s a real feeling of majesty about this number, it’s quite unlike anything he’s written before, with those Eastern/Led Zep influences prominent again on the chorus and particularly in Bonamassa’s guitar solo.
7. An Ordinary Son
Bonamassa take lead vocals again. It’s a real plus for BCC to have two such distinctive voices in the band, and this track is a beaut. Bonham tickles the gentle verses along before unleashing himself on his drumkit for the chorus.
8. I Can See Your Spirit
A breathless riff drives this one along like a runaway train, with Sherinian’s Hammond organ shining through and Bonamassa letting rip on the Les Paul.
9. Little Secret
The biggest surprise about this all-out blues number is that it was initially penned not by Bonamassa but by Hughes, who takes the opportunity to wring every bit of emotion out of his vocal delivery.
10. Crossfire
Hughes’s funk leanings get a chance to shine in the main bass/guitar riff of this one, which would have been quite at home on the magnificent Hughes Thrall album from 1982.
11. Cold
A beautiful, mid-paced song with a delicate, hypnotic guitar motif from Bonamassa. This has been moved from track 6 to finish the album in majestic style.
So there we go, that’s two Black Country Communion albums in the space of less than a year (almost four LPs worth in old money).
Next please!
Read the full Glenn Hughes interview
Up (too) close and personal with my rock heroes
Well, I got to give my new Sigma 70-200mm f2.8 lens its first concert run-out at the Journey, Foreigner & Styx gig at the LG Arena in Birmingham and, in general, I’m very pleased.
I’d decided beforehand that as this was the first time I’d used the lens for music photography, I’d shoot the first two songs of each band with the 70-200 and then swap to the 18-105mm f3.5-5.6 for the third song. That’s the lens I’ve been using for the past three years and the one – despite its drawbacks – that I’m most familiar and comfortable with.
As is fairly typical at rock concerts and most other gigs, we music photographers generally get to shoot the first three songs of each set . . . “Three songs,no flash” is the mantra.
At the moment I only have the one camera body, a Nikon D90, so I decided that as the second song came to an end I’d swap my lenses over.
Styx were the first band up (What a night . . . three of my all-time favourite bands on the same bill. Melodic rock heaven!) and I got stuck in straight away but was finding myself going “Whoah . . . extreme close up!!” most of the time.
My usual policy of planting myself right in front of the artists was not the right one with the 70-200mm and I realised I’d be more effective shooting from the sides.
This has pros and cons. The chief advantage is that you’re away from the cluster of photographers in the middle all chasing the same shot but the chief disadvantage is that you’ve very unlikely to get any eye contact with the performer. I decided I’d go for the eye contact shots with the 18-105mm shots in song three. Fingers crossed.
All was progressing well and I got this picture, possible on of the sharpest concert shots I’ve ever produced.
As the second song, Too Much Time On My Hands, was approaching its climax I started the process of swapping the lenses over. Mmm . . . maybe the song was trying to taunt me because I seemed to be experiencing quite the opposite, working in slow motion/wading through treacle (insert other suitable metaphors here), struggling away in the semi-darkness of the photo pit. The third song was already underway by the time I was ready to start shooting again but after that all progressed well.
I watched the rest of the Styx set from the side of the stage,a few feet away from Journey’s Jonathan Cain who was checking out the competition. It gave me a chance to go through my photos and I was pretty happy.
On then to Foreigner and pretty much the same story. This time it was towards the end of Head Games that I started clumsily swapping lenses again and it was at this moment that the band’s guitarist Mick Jones noticed my struggles and gave me a wry smile and a nod. I definitely think I got better photos with the 18-105mm for Foreigner, partly because their singer KellyHansen is a real livewire and I needed to be in my comfort zone to get the best out of his non-stop preening, posing and general rock godness.
My experience with Journey was much better. I was getting more familiar with the 70-200mm by them, what it could do, how to handle it (I liken it to driving an unfamiliar car - it just takes a while to get used to how it handles, its quirks and foibles). The lens swap, during Edge Of The Moment, went much more smoothly and then I was down the front to grab some cracking shots of singer Arnel Pineda and guitarist Neal Schon with the shorter lens.
Once out of the photo pit I made my way over to where my guest for the night, Magnum’s Al Barrow, and I had our seats – centre block, row 2 . . . by far the best review seats I have ever had. And because the people in front of us remained largely seated (what a waste of a front row) we leaped up and pretty much enjoyed the front row experience for ourselves!
I realised, rather frustratingly though, that if I could have shot some of the set from this vantage point I would have ended up with a far better set of pix than just from the photo pit . . . the angles are just more conducive to better and more flattering compositions and I could have captured the quite marvelous light show much better.
Anyway, a largely positive experience and I’m intrigued as to how I’m going to get on in the much tighter confines of Wolverhampton Civic Hall for Whitesnake and The Union next Thursday.
- Full Journey photo gallery (Foreigner & Styx to follow)
- Journey, Foreigner and Styx concert review – with first selection of photos.
Then, now and what will be
I was absolutely, utterly and most emphatically determined that I should not start this post to mark the launch of RocktasticBlog with the words “Welcome to my new blog” (Phew! See what I did there?).
But it is a blog. It is new. And you are absolutely, utterly and most emphatically welcome.
RocktasticPix.com website - June 2011
I’ve decided to launch RocktasticBlog as a companion to my (Warning: shameless self-promotion) music photography website www.RocktasticPix.com – which was launched at the tail end of 2008 as I took my first steps into the photo pits of the West Midlands.
It’s been quite a learning curve and adventure, which has seen me photograph, interview and in a few cases meet some of my all-time heroes – and even shoot a handful of gigs abroad (I am determined that I should have the words “international rock photographer” as my passport job description!) Anyway more of all that in some other post.
RocktasticBlog gives me the opportunity to have my own voice and say away from the photography site and also, crucially, away from my day job, editing, writing and tinkering in the background of the Express & Star and Shropshire Star newspaper websites.
I intend to use it to comment on all sorts of photographic issues, on rock music in particular and music in general, on whatever crops up in the news which has some bearing on those, on cinema, books, TV and occasionally football (if Manchester City do anything particularly noteworthy) . . . and I’m sure I’ll be having the odd rant on the subject of “celebrity culture” and “reality TV”.
For now, the launch of RocktasticBlog helps give me a moment to pause, take stock and see what changes my photography in particular has undergone in the past three years.
Recently I launched a Facebook page – www.facebook.com/rocktasticpix – and began populating it with links to every single one of the 109 (so far) gig photo galleries I have created on RocktasticPix.com
And I was fascinated by how much my style has changed, particularly, I’d say, in the past six months or so.
It used to be that I was chasing the “perfect picture” – a concept which is just absurd, of course. I’d see all these other ‘togs in the photo pit armed with better cameras than me, longer lenses than me and (for sure) better contacts lists than me. I’d be chasing that picture – you know, the guitar hero or singer striking a pose from the I-Spy Book of Dramatic Rockstar Poses, lit beautifully, framed exquisitely, utterly pin sharp and (photographically speaking) noise free.
Geddy Lee of Rush - LG Arena, Birmingham, 2011
Now I realise I am chasing something quite different . . . the light. And by that I mean the light that floods the frame around the rock star in question. I’ve begun to realise that some of my favourite concert photographs are not pin sharp, not famed exquisitely and are far from noise free. But what they do is somehow capture the sheer thrill of a) being at a rock show and b) being a rock star, with light, smoke, lens flare, off-kilter framing and vertigo-inducing angles.
I’m not saying that all of my concert photos achieve that – just certain ones, and I intend to dedicate a post just to them at some point. But it is a great feeling to get back from a gig, go through the photos on the screen and suddenly gasp “Wow!” at one which just hits the mark. It’s possibly an even greater feeling to start playing with a dull, could-be-a-reject shot in whatever photo-editing suite you have to hand and discover that with a little polish and digital magic you’ve unearthed a real gem.
As I said, I’ll dedicate a future post to some of my favourite examples of the above, as well as my favourite music photos in general (i.e. not mine).
For now I’m getting rather excited by tomorrow night’s Journey, Foreigner and Styx concert at the LG Arena in Birmingham.
And also rather daunted. The reason being that I’ve just taken delivery of a new Sigma 70-200mm f2.8 lens and tomorrow night’s concert will be my first with it. I’ve generally shot with a Nikon 18-105mm f3.5-5.6 lens and I’ve developed what I think is my own style not despite but because of its limitations.
Now it’ll be like a 21-gun salute (random AC/DC quote) as I join my colleagues/competitors (ooh, there’s another future post), all armed with our big barrel lenses.
But will I still have my own style, my own look, my own voice? Or will all our pictures turn out the same.
I guess I’ll know the answer to that in the early hours of Sunday morning as I write my review and send over a gallery’s worth of images to the newsdesk and picture desk in Wolverhampton.
In the meantime, if you are interested, I took a 90-minute stroll on the day the new lens arrived this week and went on a “guerrilla-photography” mission – just shooting whatever caught me eye. You can see the results here.
I’ll leave it there as there is plenty of work to be done here at Rocktastic Towers. I hope you’ll call back soon.
Oh . . . and welcome to my new blog!
Ian
