Quite easily one of my Dubai Sound City highlights was Wave Machines and they're a band that work just as well in a dark sweaty cellar as they do outdoors in daylight in blinding sunlight. It was Friday afternoon and the first day off in the Dubai working week, the beer at the Irish Village was flowing and the dancing had begun and for many it felt like the weekend started here! I was well late in getting onto Wave Machines and if you've not done so I suggest you do!!!
In a slight break from the ongoing Dubai Sound City live music shots, here's another shot of the Burj Dubai.
It's the third and last day of the festival and it's wind down time. Err, no! It's We Have Band time and We Have Band are a party band to be followed later by the equally brilliant Dan Black.
There's 4 of them in The Parlotones, who hail from South Africa, but at the last minute only 2 of the band could make it to Dubai which I think was something to do with visa restrictions but it didn't stop them making a big noise with only guitar and drums and big big vocals!
As well as the time needed between bands to take away and put new gear onstage for the next band, there was also gaps put into the schedule for prayers at the Mosque when the site had to be silent. The whole day was set around Muslim prayer times and it was nice to be able to chill out on a quiet site once in a while. However, an unexpected double prayers just before the Farm's gig meant a delayed set and when they finally took to the stage the crowd were well up for it and the band got Dubai Sound City very much underway!
First up today for Dubai Sound City is Sound Of Guns singing 'We are architects' next to a building site! The main stage kicked off on Thursday afternoon just as people were finishing work for the weekend so people were just starting to turn up when they took to the stage and in 95 degrees of heat and with the singer having a really bad throat they still managed to kick up a storm.
Heard the sad news yesterday about Jerry Fuchs of !!! dying in New York when he fell down an elevator shaft. Jerry also played with The Juan MacLean, the band he's drumming for here at Korova for Evol's 2nd birthday. Full story is here.
I've never heard Irish band Aslan before but they fitted right in and were the first band that had the crowd singing along. Might have been something to do with the fact that the main stage was in the Irish Village!
Very close to completion and an opening date this is the tallest building in the world at a silly height of over 800 meters!!! This view from across the gardens of a nearby hotel includes the nightly water display which itself seemed to be reaching like 40-60 storeys high! The tower will no doubt feature in more pics to come!
OK, I'm back and I'm on the blog! Don't know what happened out in Dubai but I couldn't sort out my blog at the venue to the point that even the interface seemed upside down though I don't think my brain was the right way around anyway most of the time due to working and playing very very very late hours over the course of a 3 day festival!
So now there's stacks of photos to upload over the next few days and first up is Super Furry Animals who introduced themselves as the Bunnymen 'cos the Bunnymen had last minute cancelled their headline slot. As to why they'd cancelled I don't know for sure but there was mention of a sick singer and a doctor's note. I haven't had a doctor's note since I was 8! Needless to say their were a few disappointed fans as living out in somewhere like the UAE, it's a bit special when your favourite band comes to town and proper gutting when they cancel. Let's hope he's really ill but the night still went down a storm as the Super Furry Animals were a great replacement and a brilliant mostly chilled out wind down after 3 days of madness! The madness is to come.....
Seeing as how I'm having upload/internet/photo agency/email/ichat/geek nonsense problems I'm going to jump forward to headliners The Human League who played a brilliant closing set on day 1 of Dubai Sound City.
Raced over to the Irish Village, which is actually just a row of Irish pubs so I suppose it is a pretty authentic Irish Village, to see Wave Machines only we were a day early and so instead we sat around in the sun (it's hard work this job) and waited for two of Liverpool's finest new bands. First up The Bicycle Thieves!!
Last of the random shots and these were taken in and around the Emirates Hotel, home of the conference, before we headed off to the Irish Village for the first of the days bands! More very soon.
The conference has started with an opening speech by Sound City director Dave Pichilingi, who's also a birthday boy today, and then two days of talks and debates have got under way in the rather impressive surroundings of the Jumeirah Emirates Towers hotel.
Last night saw a very very very nice reception held in the grounds of the British Embassy and after a long first day I didn't do anything official but got a quick shot of the party and then tried to do a nice skyline photo on the way back to the hotel.
Arrived in Dubai at 6am and thinking the heat might be unbearable in a few hours, we decided to go out and see what was on offer. Needless to say, not having had a proper sleep on the overnight flight, it was all a bit surreal and as expected, the heat just kept going up and up. Still, we wandered around the older part of town and saw a few souks and a fish market before heading across the creek and checking out some of the Sound City venues. Everything backstage is looking very exciting and although the panic must be kicking in, all on the ground seems to look quite sorted and the next thing for me to do is to work out who I'm photographing and when! But before Dubai Sound City starts at 10am tomorrow, here's a few photos from this morning's wander!
Cuban legends the Buena Vista Social Club played The Phil in Liverpool on Saturday and I got to shoot the whole show which makes a nice change as a lot of gigs are shot from the the same point at the back of the hall for the first three songs only so this way I got to get something a bit different.
Having been a fan of both the album and also the film of the same name by Wim Wenders, this was the first time I've seen them and it's a brilliant show! Still on tour, check them out here.
Next stop for me is Dubai for Dubai Sound City which kicks off on Thursday for 3 nights and features a massive lineup including De la Soul, Doves, The Bunnymen, The Wombats and loads more. Watch this space!
Nice sunset last night but I didn't have time to go anywhere so this is the view from our skylight!
Not seen The Bicycle Thieves yet but I will do later this week as they're one of the Liverpool bands playing out at Dubai Sound City. These are from a recent press session I did with the band. Check out the band here.
Enter Shikari photographed backstage at O2 Academy a couple of weeks ago.
Part 2 of last night's Specials gig at The Olympia for the opening of Liverpool Music Week!
Opening up with Do The Dog and closing with You're Wondering Now, The Specials gig launched Liverpool Music Week in a big big way last night and the gig is the best one I've seen in a long time and ranks up there in my top 5 ever alongside The Jam at the Royal Court, Patti Smith at Carling Academy, Black Lips at Liverpool Sound City earlier this year and Portishead in Blackpool's Empress Ballroom in 1995. It was my first gig at the Olympia and the first time I've ever seen The Specials and both were amazing! The venue is a proper old theatre and is mostly used for cage fighting but the place looks stunning as well as being a very easy venue to watch a band. And the band themselves? Well, The Specials only had like 2 albums and half a dozen singles but last night was 2 hours of hit after hit with a brilliant support band that I don't remember the name of and a reggae soundsystem and I've never seen such a happy up for it middle aged audience since the David Byrne gig earlier on in the year at The Phil. Do the do the do the do the Dog!!!
More photos to follow......
Victoria Christina Hesketh came out last night to the O2 Academy sell out crowd through dense dry ice, dressed in a silver hooded cloak and preceded to sit and play a keyboard at the back of the stage behind a giant black skull which had beams of light projected out of it's eyes and for a moment I thought I was at a Hawkwind gig. Three minutes later and it was all back to normal. This is Little Boots.
After a quiet couple of months of gigs partly down to the fact that I did my ankle in just before the August Bank Holiday, which meant that the Mathew Street Festival and Creamfields were knocked on the head straight away, the next few weeks are going to be music music music with gigs at my regular haunt O2 Academy as well as some on the Liverpool Music Week calendar. And on top of that I also get to go to Dubai for Dubai Sound City as the official photographer which is great news. The Dubai Sound City is being ran by the same people who've done the Liverpool event which has taken the city by storm over the last two years and both events have left me in a right state due to working day and night and trying to fit in as much as possible. Take the event outdoors and into 90 degrees of heat and I might even lose a bit of weight! Aside from the fact that I'm going to see loads of great bands in somewhere new to me it's also great just seeing how a local festival has been invited to work on an event in Dubai and I can't wait to see some of Liverpool finest bands playing out there. They're gonna sweat!!
Going with me on the trip is Peter Guy, Liverpool's finest musical scribe and together we should be posting back on a daily basis so watch this space. Check Peter's blog out here.
I've already posted this slideshow but for those tuning in from the UAE, this is what Liverpool Sound City was like for us in 2009!