Haydn's Blog

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Posts Tagged Vic Inn

Kris Roe acoustic

Feb 1

Posted by Haydn in Gigs, Photography | No Comments

I'd been dreading this gig, on the basis that I love Blue Skies, Broken Hearts Next 12 Exits, and wasn't convinced that seeing it acoustic and live would live up to my expectations, and might ruin the record. Man, how wrong was I?

<strong>Kris Roe - acoustic set.</strong><br />Copyright Haydn Williams 2009

Kris Roe - acoustic set.
Copyright Haydn Williams 2009

The set was a mixture of BSBH, So Long, Astoria and End if Forever. Kris was chatty throughout, he spoke with the crowd rather than just to us, and most of all he was faithful to the original songs without ever being boring. It's obvious from the lyrics that the songs mean a lot to him, and that passion was really what made the live performance so good. It takes a lot for a solo acoustic gig to be a total success, but this undoubtedly was.

<strong>The entirety of Kris' kit.</strong><br />Copyright Haydn Williams 2009

The entirety of Kris' kit.
Copyright Haydn Williams 2009

Photography-wise, Kris asked for the front gels to be turned off, and so was playing in almost complete darkness. This didn't make life very easy! Despite f1.8 and ISO3200, there was still plenty of motion blur and focussing problems. The sheer number of people didn't help, so it wasn't a terribly successful night in terms of image-making. I also found it quite ridiculous how many people thought it totally fine to spend an entire set firing flashes at an artist. To my mind, it's rude and distracting, and I really do think people should have some consideration both for the artist and the rest of the crowd before photographing (or worse, videoing with a constant light). But that's just one of my little bug-bears!

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Failsafe / Showdown City

Nov 26

Posted by Haydn in Gigs | No Comments

Last Thursday I went to the Vic Inn to see Failsafe and Showdown City. I've not seen Failsafe for a while, but they were definitely up to their usual standard. A nice mix of material from the last album, and the new one, "The Truth Is…".

Failsafe (Copyright Haydn Williams 2008)

Failsafe

I'd never heard of Showdown City before this gig, which surprises me because they play my kind of pop punk, and have apparently been around since 2005. Their experience shows in the form of a very competent set, with plenty of energy. It's also good to see a band with a female vocalist – I know I'm partial to female vocals anyway, but with the demise of Tsunami Bomb, No Comply, etc, I think we need more girls taking up (or continuing) the punk rock mantle. Anyway, very entertaining – check them out on Myspace.

Showdown City (Copyright Haydn Williams 2008)

Showdown City

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Back to Basics with SB6

Aug 7

Posted by Haydn in Gigs, Photography | No Comments

Last night was Grown at Home, 3 Storeys High and Sonic Boom 6 at the Vic Inn, in Derby. Despite the ludicrous temperature in there (as always) it was another good night. At the last minute I decided to take the camera along, but didn't want to carry much because I was cycling to the station. So, I went back to basics and took only the 50mm f/1.8 lens; no other lenses, and no flash. I shot all night at ISO 3200 and f/1.8, with the intention of all the shots being converted to monochrome.

Laila. (c) Haydn Williams 2008

Laila. (c) Haydn Williams 2008

The shot above was one of the first ones I got – they've changed the lighting a bit since I was last at the Vic, and there's now two yellow cans pointing right at centre-stage. It works pretty well. None of the shots on this page have had anything done to them except conversion to monochrome and sharpening for the web.

Ben. (c) Haydn Williams 2008.

Ben. (c) Haydn Williams 2008.

I was stood right in front of Ben, and without the wide-angle it was hard to get much of him in the frame. As usual, the crowd were going crazy so there wasn't much room to manoeuvre. Even so, I've not cropped any of the shots on this page, and I'm quite pleased with the results.

Barney Boom. (c) Haydn Williams 2008.

Barney Boom. (c) Haydn Williams 2008.

I like the Vic because you can always get to the side of the stage, and pretty much behind the band. Combined with the lights in front of the stage, you can get some good crowd shots if the band have got them interested enough. As you can see from the shot of Barney above, the crowd were loving it last night.

It's all about the energy. (c) Haydn Williams 2008.

It's all about the energy. (c) Haydn Williams 2008.

Finally, the last shot just sums up SB6 for me. Every time I see them, they give it 100%, and last night was no exception. I have no idea what the temperature in there was, but suffice to say it was very very hot. It was obviously really hard work up there on stage, and yet no-one in the band stayed still for more than about half a second throughout the entire set. To top it all off, they then followed it up with a cracking encore; an excellent new song (which I'll confess I can't remember the name of), and Monkey See Monkey Do to finish. Bloody brilliant.

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