When Crystal Castles played in the Boiler Room a couple of years ago, the experience of photographing them from the stage was cool.  It was nice to have that opportunity and to have a set of photos to provide some variety from the usual “up-nose”view festival photos (even if some photographers hogged the best positions at the front of the stage for the whole time).  This time around, there’s a large collection of photographers ready and waiting in the pit when the tour manager (at a guess) comes down, has a small fit, tells us all that no photographers are allowed in the pit and gets security to escort us all out.  I’m guessing it was the same story at the other BDO shows.  So instead I make use of the time to go and photograph Foals.

Although I’ve seen them a few times now, Foals are one of those bands that I just don’t really get.  By the time they play, the sun has set, so there’s no ambient light in the Green Stage tent and it’s totally reliant on the stage lights.  As expected, from previous experience, it’s fairly dark so I’m a bit surprised at the quality of the photos that come out.  I think the Foals photos that end up getting rated as worth progressing with form one of the largest sets of photos from the day to select from.  I’m not sure if the ones in this gallery are the best, but they’re ones that I liked.

Amazingly this is the first time I’ve ever seen The Red Hot Chilli Peppers, it’s just a shame that I’m more than 20 years late.  I did come “this” close to seeing them in late 1999.  Back in the fairly early days of the internet as a global phenomenon, (…well, the late 1990s when I was at uni doing my PhD), I used to enter loads of online competitions.  These were still the Netscape years and so the number of people using the net and entering all these competitions was nowhere near as high as it is now.  It was a high successful time for winning stuff, and, of course, DVDs, games, cinema tickets, and music-related competitions were high on my list.  So not too long after I’d finished my thesis and moved to London I must have entered a *cough* Feeder *cough* competition (although I don’t think even then I could remember it) and got back from work one Monday to find a parcel containing a few Feeder CDs and a fetching orange Feeder T shirt.  The parcel was about to be thrown out when an envelope fell out and inside the envelope were a pair of tickets to see Feeder play at Wembley Arena supporting The Red Hot Chilli Peppers. Brilliant. Except it would have been if the concert hadn’t had been on the Saturday night, two days before the tickets arrived. True story.

But even by the end of 1990s, the Chilli Peppers were a band that I’d more or less left behind.  Bizarrely (when compared to most people) they lost me with Blood Sugar Sex Magik.  I adored the two albums before that (Mothers Milk and Uplift Mofo Party Plan) really liked the first two albums (The Red Hot Chilli Peppers and Freaky Styley ) but just hated BSSM.  They’d really lost their sense of fun.  It was just a real stodgy and bloated album and far too slick sounding.  Thinking about it, I really struggle with a lot of the albums that Rick Rubin is feted for producing.  I was such a fan back then, that they were one of the bands where I sought out the singles and 12 inch vinyl releases.  These include The Abbey Road EP, a Knock Me Down 7” picture disc and the limited edition Higher Ground and Show Me Your Soul (I think) 12 inch singles.  I have enjoyed some of the singles since those reasonably early days (at least pre-stadium gig days before they became massive), but not enough to actually go out and buy anything.  That’s probably even more unlikely having now read Anthony Kiedis’s Scar Tissue autobiography, where he basically came over as one of the irritating people ever.  The book felt like a never-ending repetition of “Met a beautiful girl, it was love at first sight, got fucked up on drugs, we broke up”.  It would be a close-run thing between Kiedis and Slash for who comes off worst from their respective autobiographies.

Even the drawcard of seeing them with John Frusciante has sadly long since passed.  Instead the Chilli Peppers on show tonight are one that are big on songs from their BSSM and their most recent album and the big hit singles from the last few albums, totally ignoring those first four albums.  The first three songs feel like they go on for hours but, despite that, it’s still a frustrating shoot as they keep standing too far back on the stage, largely hidden from a perfect view thanks to the high stage and the foldback speakers.  There’s lot of running around on the stage (although not much jumping) but impossible to actually capture well from the photo pit.

Even though it’s not great, I don’t really want to leave the RHCP for Animal Collective over in the Green Stage tent.  It’s a real surprise when I get there to find that the tent is maybe only a third full.  It’s not engaging in the slightest so I don’t even make two songs.  I would have been quicker but had to wait for them to open their eyes before taking their photo.  Usually there’s nothing worse than photographing musicians who keep their eyes shut the whole time.

The frustration continues with Sleigh Bells, the Essential Stage headliners.  If you didn’t start their set with photo sensitive epilepsy, it’s highly likely that you had it be the end.  On closer inspection of the photos post-festival, Alexis Krauss has her eyes shut in EVERY SINGLE PHOTO.  Maybe if they didn’t subject the audience to an hour long strobe show, she wouldn’t have to do this.

I had absolutely no intention of ending at the Boiler Stage tent to photograph Bloody Beetroots but thanks to the frustration of trying to photograph Animal Collective and Sleigh Bells playing in the dark, I feel obliged to try and get some better photos of another of the headline acts.  I stay for two songs, hating every minute thanks to the band playing under terrible lighting, before catching a few more numbers from the RHCP on the main stage and then starting on the long trip back to Brisbane.

2013 marks the last time that the Big Day Out will be at the Gold Coast Parklands.  Despite some brinksmanship from the organisers it looks like it’ll be back at the Gold Coast next year.  I wish they would just have done with it and move it to Brisbane.  It would make life a whole lot easier for everyone.

Last year it looked like the festival was on the brink of ending and it’s a surprise to see how busy it is this year compared to the 2012 event.  It’s not a sell out but looks close to it.  (It’s interesting to consider that last year’s headliner of Kanye West was also one of the headliners for the very under-sold 2011 Splendour In The Grass at Woodford, even if the organisers of Splendour have explained that Coldplay not being a festival band was why their event didn’t sell out.  Having seen Coldplay headline Glastonbury twice I would dispute this theory).

Recently I saw some comments from one of the T In The Park organisers who said that there are only 10 acts in the world that they think they could book as a headliner (whether they would need three of these acts for each night or just once of them to play one night each year isn’t clear).  The booking of RHCP (and, to a slightly lesser extent, The Killers) seems an obvious choice and suggests that the way to future success is to book a headliner (or two) who have the mainstream appeal and huge commercial radio play, as well as also being acceptable (and I use that word and it’s definition very broadly. Maybe I should use “wouldn’t balk at the thought at being in the same field of a particular mainstream act or other”) to a more alternative crowd.  There’s no doubt that the world’s festivals must be keeping close tabs for news that Foo Fighters have decided to record and tour again.  They’re the perfect festival headline fodder act if you want your massive event to sell out with minimal effort.

The quickest way back to the media tent after a few songs of Jagwar Ma is through the photo pit.  Grinspoon are about to start so I make the most of the walk by taking a couple of photos in the first song.  Some might say it was a good walk spoiled.

Death Grips are probably the highlight of the day.  As a photographer, it’s the sort of performance that you relish, even if it’s made a bit more difficult under the average lighting conditions in the tent stages.  It’s a performance that doesn’t pause for breath and being in the front row of the photo pit gives you that feeling of being right in the midst of it all.  Musically it’s a bit one trick pony but the vitality and the passion pulls you in.

I quite like Band Of Horses, I even have a couple of their albums.  I enjoyed them when they played at Splendour a few years ago, enough to buy their at-the-time-current album and had been looking forward to seeing them again today .  But when it comes around, I just don’t feel in the mood for it.  Being in the photo pit doesn’t inspire me and so I call it a day after less than two songs.  It’s partly the impact of jetlag and the comfy confines of the media tent calling to my wearing body and mind but also because they’ve drawn a really short straw after the explosive set that Death Grips are still in the middle of over at the Essential Stage tent.

There’s a very short window of opportunity to photograph Off! before Childish Gambino, with ten minutes between their respective start times.  Luckily, Off! manage to squeeze in 4 songs in first five minutes, and a I get a few nice shots of Keith Morris before an almost leisurely walk back over to the Essential Stage tent.  It’s still far too soon after Death Grips to be enraptured by Childish Gambino, although the tent is packed and everyone seems elated by the set.

The Yeah Yeah Yeahs are one of those bands that always seem to bypass Brisbane.  One of those acts that, if we’re lucky, we’ll get the short festival set (not always guaranteed to actually be in the city itself or even in the same state or timezone) but rarely to never actually get a sideshow and a full set.  A 45 minute set every few years seems to be all that promoters ever offer Brisbane for some acts and often we’re not even blessed with that, with some acts, often fairly high profile ones, flown in to only play shows in Sydney and Melbourne.

I’d been wanting to photograph the YYYs for years and they’re the only act of the day that I stay for to watch the whole set.  Photographing them isn’t too bad although the three songs whizz by in the blink of an eye.  The main frustration is that I really want some good photos of Nick Zinner but he keeps either hiding too far back from the front of the stage or where the foldback speakers and equipment only provide a really limited view of him.  It’s hard not to take photos of Karen O throughout, but I’ve always considered them to be one of those bands that are equal in what each member brings to the band and want to at least try to take divide the limited time to photograph each of them equally.

The set they play is ok but I just don’t think that they’re a band that’s meant to play the main outdoor stage at big outdoor summer festivals.  It doesn’t suit them and despite Karen O’s presence, they don’t really project themselves to a really large crowd.

Back when I lived on the northside of Brisbane, the train journey down to Helensvale felt like it took forever. Now that I live on the southside, it takes a whole lot less time, the only downside being by the time the train gets to me, there’s standing room only.  Everyone on a train heading to the Gold Coast at that time of the day is going to the Big Day Out and over the course of the last few years, I’ve increasing felt like the oldest person on the train, possibly something approaching responsible adult status.  Having said that, this year the train trip isn’t too bad, although when it arrives at Helensvale, despite being just after 10am, there are already people fast approaching a state of unconsciousness on the benches outside the station.

There’s already a queue for the shuttle bus, one that grows as the next train arrives before a bus turns up. The roads seem even busier than previous years, so the plan to be there for the start of the first acts quickly goes out the window. Getting to the site, the next task is to find where to pick up the photo pass from, as although instructions have been emailed out, they lead us on a wild goose chase.

The site has a similar set-up to last year, although Lilyworld has made a welcome return, if only as a stage rather than the whole separate area it used to occupy. If you’ve read any review of this year’s Big Day Out, you will have read all about ‘Chow Town’. I’ve never really quite understood why reviewers feel the need to devote a chunk of their (often) word limit to providing details of the gourmet experiences on offer, what they ate during the day, and how many marks out of ten they awarded their food during the day. Essentially this year BDO had more food outlets than previous years, and this was obviously newsworthy and an item to celebrate. I saw ‘Chow Town’ from a distance but that was a far as it got.

Having missed the first set of acts on the timetable, the first act that gets photographed is ME. I saw them a few years back at Alhambra when they played at BigSound. They were going for a Queen/Muse over-the-top indulgent sound but more-or-less ended up at The Darkness. Watching them a few years on, they seem to have really toned down the indulgence but are less interesting for it. I don’t quite know why, but they also look like a band that’s paid a visit to a stylist in those in-between years. Maybe I’m just sceptical of any band that choses to wear waistcoats as their onstage attire.

Every Time I Die are another one of those stereotypical modern day rock/metal/call-it-what-you-want bands. Rock music by numbers and by checklist.

I caught a very brief glimpse of The Delta Spirit a few years ago at Splendour and despite only seeing about one song’s worth, was blown away. They became one of the bands from that weekend to follow up and the debut album was purchased as soon as possible after the event. It was ok, nowhere near as good as the live performance. Surprisingly for a Splendour and Dew Process act, there was a Brisbane show in the form of a support to Cold War Kids, but unhelpfully on the Sunday of Splendour. They did play at The Hi-Fi in 2010 as support to Ben Kweller but as far as I know they’ve never played a headline show in Brisbane and so, once again, the only glimpse I get of them is a few songs between bands on other stages. It’s a shame that the style of music they play has been usurped by a whole host of triple j favourites during the last few years.

Against Me! follow a similar line to Every Time I Die. All the photographers are out in force to photograph the band’s lead singer, and that’s the most interesting thing about them.

Gary Clark Jr wasn’t on my list of acts to photograph when I started the day but was a recommendation. Again, I only see a few songs but the Hendrix comparisons seem fairly lazy and are probably more based on colour than anything else. The songs and his playing are too straight-up blues for Hendrix comparisons. More Stevie Ray Vaughn than Jimi if you ask me, but maybe it got a whole lot wilder after I’d moved on to the next band.

The next band is the NME-rated Jagwar Ma. It’s always interesting when international press is paying more attention to Australian acts than Australian’s own mainstream music media. It’s not really that much of a surprise considering that street press is essentially a weekly listings publications that devotes the majority of its space to telling you who’s announced shows and tours, interviewing people about to play shows and tours, reviewing shows and tours that happened last week and providing a couple pages at the back about who’s playing shows and tours in the forthcoming weeks. Having gone to bi-monthly, I’m not sure what the purpose of triple j magazine is anymore, other than for additional coverage for the stations DJs. I think both will be gone from print media within the next five years. Although described as a “new” band, both members of Jagwar Ma were in fairly high-profile-at-the-time bands, The/Lost Valentinos (I really should sort out those old photos so they work again) and Ghostwood. It would be impossible to describe their new band without using the word “Madchester”. Sometimes I wonder if bands look at what’s gone before and try to pre-empt the revival. The trouble with Madchester is that it was very fleeting and the majority of those bands ran out of ideas fairly quickly. As a quick distraction, Jagwar Ma are fine but it’s little more a dose of retromania and nostalgia for days gone by and bands not really thought about for a good while.

A couple of years ago I got back from a trip to the UK and a few hours later was out photographing a festival in the Botanic Gardens.  Unfortunately I had been en route and had missed the far superior line-up of the first day of Sunset Sounds but getting out of the house to photograph the weaker second day still showed itself to be a good way of beating jetlag, even if it was a fairly unpleasant day of heavy rain and mud in the lead up to the January 2011 flooding in Brisbane.

Fast forward two years and I find myself getting back to Brisbane the day before heading down to the Gold Coast to photograph the Big Day Out.  Although I’ve afforded myself a day to get over the worst of jetlag, it’s a much tougher prospect than last time, as it involves the added burden of travelling to and from the Gold Coast, plus a quick turnaround deadline to provide photos the following day, neither of which I had last time.

Indeed it is a really long and arduous day.  The cause isn’t helped by all my files disappearing when transferring them to an external hard drive.  This happens at about 2am after I’ve been through everything three or four times to select the best/my favourite photos and have done the initial editing.  After a very stressful 15 minutes I manage to recover everything but find that the star ratings used to shortlist the photos for the gallery and all the editing has vanished.  All up about 2 hours’ worth of work has been lost.  It’s the very last thing you want to discover at 2am when you’ve had a really long day on site and have jetlag from a 25 hour trip back from the UK.  The only thing to do is to start again, although in the end I have to call it a night due to extreme exhaustion and leave more work than I would have liked until later the following morning, when I’ve had a few hours more sleep.

The day itself wasn’t too bad and was greatly helped by the provision of a really good media tent, a rarity at most single-day festivals I’ve been to.  Somewhere comfortable to sit between photographing helped immensely, even if on occasions during the afternoon it was just too comfortable for someone with jetlag, and the urge to sleep increased.  Free drinks and nibbles made it a lot more enjoyable than the normal festival photographing experience when you have to plan meals in your timetable to allow time to queue up and eat.  Power to plug in laptops and phones was a great help as well, although, yet again, something went wrong with my phone and it didn’t record the whole day’s GPS tracker, once again deciding to die midway through the day.  This is what it captured in the hours it was working:

View 20/01/2013 11:58 in a larger map

Total distance: 5.94 km (3.7 mi)
Total time: 5:22:16
Moving time: 4:20:55
Average speed: 1.11 km/h (0.7 mi/h)
Average moving speed: 1.37 km/h (0.8 mi/h)
Max speed: 14.06 km/h (8.7 mi/h)
Average pace: 54.22 min/km (87.3 min/mi)
Average moving pace: 43.90 min/km (70.7 min/mi)
Fastest pace: 4.27 min/km (6.9 min/mile)
Max elevation: 75 m (245 ft)
Min elevation: 49 m (160 ft)
Elevation gain: 158 m (517 ft)
Max grade: 0 %
Min grade: 0 %

It seemed to be a slightly different audience than in recent years and a better one too, at least one that abused me less as I walked by with my camera.  There were a whole lot less Southern Cross flags/clothes/tattoos on display than normal, or at least on obvious display. Then again, maybe I just spent too much time in the media tent away from the masses.  After all, the train journey down was the same as ever and there were already unconscious people at Helensvale train station by 10am.

After last year, it was a surprise just how busy this year’s event.  Maybe this is the result of getting a few more crossover mainstream acts high up on the bill (Red Hot Chilli Peppers, The Killers), bands who get way more play on commercial radio than they would on triple j but who could still be accepted by the triple j crowd.

Looking back on the day, there weren’t that many highlights. I really enjoyed photographing Death Grips, it was good to finally get to photograph the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and, after all these years to finally see the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, even if it’s more than 20 years too late.   Equally, there weren’t too many lowlights, other than the overall unexciting line-up (which was obviously known well in advance) and most of the headline acts playing with terrible lighting.

Photos from the day coming up in the next series of posts.

I can remember saying when I got my first digital camera that I saw no reason to stop using my film camera and expected to keep using both cameras side-by-side.  For a while I did keep photographing gigs in film and digital but it didn’t last too long.  Since that time I’ve had rolls of random film taking up space at the back of my fridge, all of which, as the years have gone by, have gone well past their use by date.  Whenever it gets to festival season, I always declare that this year I’m going to take my film camera and clear out some space in the fridge by shooting a few rolls of film.  A number of times I have got as far as carrying all the extra gear in my bag but without actually loading some film and using my old Minolta 5 in anger.

Festivals present the best opportunity but it can still be hard to find the time in a three song, no flash situation to put the DSLR down. Sometimes those three songs goes by in what feels like the blink of an eye. Despite all the advantages of digital and being able to take endless photos, it can be hard to stop photographing, going far beyond the point you need to and just adding to a ridiculous number of photos of an act, 95% that will never see the light of day and be stored until the end of time on an external hard drive.  Back when I did use film, I would often use a single roll of 36 photos over the whole night, maybe 8 shots each for the support acts, 20 for the headliner.  If I was really enjoying it I would sometimes push the boat out to a second roll of film and end up with 72 photos from the night.  I still don’t think I take a lot of photos compared to a lot of my contemporaries, typically 50 to 100 in three songs but it still seems ridiculous compared to the good old days.

I finally got around to using some of my film stock at this year’s Soundwave.  I didn’t give it much thought, which is how I ended up shooting three different film types at three different ISO settings.  I didn’t give much thought to who I was going to photograph, it was random and based a lot more on who I was bored of photographing with digital (i.e. I had more photos than I would ever know what to do with), rather than wanting to get film of particular bands.  The day started with Ilford Pan F. Being smart I decided that rather than risk it at ISO 50, that I’d push it to 200 and that would give me more freedom in terms of aperture and shutter speed settings.  That was all well and good until it was time to develop the film and I found out that you’re not meant to push Pan F and that there’s no official development time for using it at ISO 200.  In the end I just had to use the Massive Development Chart and calculate an approximate time that might work (and luckily it did).  The Pan F was used for the photos of The Blackout, Anthrax and Kyuss Lives.  Ilford HP5 at the standard 400 ISO was used for the photos of Slayer and Sum 41. Finally Ilford Delta 3200 was used at ISO 1600 for the Garbage and Metallica photos.

Given that I had to basically make-up a development time for the Pan F, I was surprised that the negatives didn’t come out too badly.  They were maybe a little flat in terms of contrast, but as the film became out of date back in 2007, getting anything was a bonus.  The HP5 photos of Slayer came out best.  From previous years’ experience of photographing Soundwave, the late afternoon slot on the main stage, when Slayer played, is the optimal time for lighting; earlier in the day the sun is too overhead and the light too harsh, later in the day it just gets too dark.  The Delta 3200 photos were the most disappointing, even at ISO 1600 they were very grainy and the in a lot of them my metering was really off, with the highlights really being blown out.  A couple of the shots were ok but it was disappointing to end up with so few usable photos of Metallica.

Developing was done using a very DIY approach of loading the development tank under a duvet in a dark room at night.  It seemed pitch black at first but as your eyes adjusted you realised that wasn’t really, but still dark enough to work in and the negatives didn’t suffer from the low light leak.  The rolls were all developed using ID11 at 24 degrees and then digitalised  using a negative scanner.  It was at this point in the process that I found out that my scanner doesn’t work with updated versions of both Windows or Photoshop.  Luckily my almost 10 year old laptop had all the necessary software to be able to scan in the negatives.

From the 108 (3 x 36 roll) photos taken on film, the first pass through them resulted in over 52 that were worth progressing, a pretty good return considering once-upon-a-time getting half a dozen good shots from a roll of film would have been cause for celebration.  The negs weren’t cleaned with film cleaner so they’re presented in all their watermarked and dust affected glory.  Some tidying up was carried out in Photoshop to reduce the worse affected areas but they’re far from perfect.  Even in their imperfect form, I’m really happy with how they turned out.  I especially love the tone of them.  It’s strange to look at them compared to digital images and consider that this was how it was all done less than ten years ago.

Back when I made the move to digital, they were almost giving away film.  Looking at prices now, you’re talking $12 to $15 for a roll of 36.  In thinking about replenishing my film supplies, the best option looks to buy in bulk from overseas, and get it down to about $8 a roll.  There’s still almost six months until the next festival season starts again but having taken these photos at Soundwave, I’m eager to take some more film at next year’s festivals and maybe a few smaller shows as well.

Looking back over 2012’s music festivals, it was definitely the year of disappointing festivals.  Whether a case of average line-ups or on-the-day issues, none really delivered as an overall package, even though there were obvious pockets of quality bands and quality sets at each festival.

If I hadn’t had been photographing at Harvest last year, I definitely would have bought a ticket.  This year I wouldn’t have.  The more interesting things that happened at this year’s Harvest happened during the daylight hours but it still wouldn’t have been enough for me to part with $180 (or whatever it was).  I guess I’m surprised that so many people get excited about Beck in 2012.  Having seen him a number of times down the years at various music festivals, he’s someone I’ve just never connected with.  Although the named headliner, he played before Sigur Ros, another post-rock band that leaves me cold.  I just don’t see this beauty that everyone else claims about them.  Last year had Portishead and Flaming Lips. Main stage headliners of Beck and Sigur Ros just don’t come close to 2011’s offerings.

The interesting parts of Harvest 2012 mainly happened either very early on in the day or on the smallest stage (the Big Red Tractor Stage).  War On Drugs, Dexys, Liars and Black Angels were highlights from the day. Chromatics’ set was affected by the storm and ended up being later and shorter than planned, which meant I couldn’t see as much as had hoped.  On the main stage, Mike Patton’s Mondo Cane provided something different from the largely unexciting bill.  We had advanced warning that we would only be able to photograph the second song and that it wouldn’t be from the photo pit.  However, no one came to meet us and direct us to the required spot so all of the photographers ended up photographing the first three songs from the pit.  Given his reputation regarding photographers, I was expecting Patton to say something but he didn’t   He didn’t spit on us nor did he roll his microphone stand off the stage into the photo pit. It was a surprisingly pleasant experience.

Another festival where nothing was notated for future reference, largely because a few days after the festival I headed off on holiday for 2 months and had too much to do before leaving.  I didn’t even get around to putting together a quick round-up of the day’s events.

I did try to use my mobile to track my movements during the day but as with other recent festivals, the battery didn’t last very long and had died by mid afternoon, capturing less than half of the day’s activities.

View 18/11/2012 11:26am in a larger map

Total distance: 6.64 km (4.1 mi)
Total time: 4:32:31
Moving time: 3:17:33
Average speed: 1.46 km/h (0.9 mi/h)
Average moving speed: 2.02 km/h (1.3 mi/h)
Max speed: 16.60 km/h (10.3 mi/h)
Average pace: 41.03 min/km (66.0 min/mi)
Average moving pace: 29.74 min/km (47.9 min/mi)
Fastest pace: 3.62 min/km (5.8 min/mi)
Max elevation: 104 m (342 ft)
Min elevation: 20 m (67 ft)
Elevation gain: 276 m (906 ft)
Max grade: 28 %
Min grade: -30 %

Harvest 2012 was an interesting experience, however, in it being the first festival I’ve ever been to that’s been evacuated due to the weather and that’s the one residing memory from the day.  All those wet years at Glastonbury (1997, 1998 and 2005) and all those wet years at Reading (pretty much every year) pretty much paled into insignificance compared to the early evening storm that passed over the Brisbane CBD on Sunday 18 November.

I first saw the announcement that the festival site was being evacuated on Twitter on another photographer’s phone while we were in the Le Boudoir tent.  Nothing seemed to be happening though: the performance on the stage was still going on, there was no announcement from the stage, no one was moving, and everything was carrying on as normal.  Heading out of the tent, more action that something was happening was obvious.  The nearer I got to the main exit, the heavier the rain became and the closer the lightning got, literally on a metre-by-metre basis. Despite the oncoming storm, it was surprising to see so many people who considered the best place to ride out a massive thunder storm was under one of the big trees in the Botanic Gardens or who were trying to seek shelter in one of the tents.

By the time I’d got out of the Botanic Gardens and was looking to cross the road, the hail had started.  With so many people seeking shelter under the awnings of the hotel on the corner of George Street, I walked past looking for the next available shelter but realised that there was nothing on that side of the street. Crossing George Street was the most terrifying part; the hail was coming down so hard it was a complete whiteout and with visibility down to only a few metres, being hit by a car was the biggest worry.  Sanctuary was found in the entrance to one of the residential apartment buildings.  Either some kind resident had noticed the situation and had taken pity on the group of refugees on their doorstep or someone hadn’t closed the door properly, but on closer inspection, the swipe card entry was ajar and everyone could get out of the elements and inside the building.  It wasn’t much, just a dark corridor leading to the lift and the ground floor flats, but it was better than being outside on the rain-swept entrance.

Having brought my laptop with me, I was able to pass the time by getting started on downloading photos, renaming them and starting to edit.  I’m not sure how long I was there, I don’t think it was too long, maybe 40 minutes, I think it was less than an hour.  The rain and hail had stopped, so it was just a case of walking back down the road, flashing my wristband at the entrance gate, heading down to the main stage and waiting for Beck to start his storm-delayed set.

The Presets were Parklife’s main stage headliners, a somewhat risky proposition given that when the lineup was announced and the tickets went on sale, they had yet to release their third album.  They get a reasonable crowd but The Riverstage is nowhere near as busy as it had been during the afternoon for the likes of Rizzle Kicks and Chiddy Bang.  The whole festival site is a lot quieter during the last couple of hours than during the day so I’m assuming that people were either too wasted and went home, didn’t come or want to stick around for the headliners, or are just all at one of the DJ stages that I didn’t make it to during the day.

It can be tricky photographing The Presets but I really love these photos from today.  If I remember correctly, the last time I photographed them was at Splendour when they played a high stage.  The keyboards and microphones made it impossible to get a clear, unobstructed shot of Julian and Kim’s drum kit was set up on a riser, with the drums and cymbals almost completely blocking any view of him from the photo pit.  The low stage of the Riverstage always helps in maximising the view you have of the performers and also minimises, as much as is possible, the ‘up nose’ angle you normally get at the big festivals.

There’s only 15 minutes between the time that The Presets start and the time that Robyn starts at the other end of the festival site, so there’s no time to sit back, relax and watch the headliners, just a final route march through the crowd to the final act of the day. As with The Presets, I’m really happy with the Robyn photos.  Although I’m often jealous that the photographers down south get the benefit of daylight savings and get the extra light to make their job a lot more easier, at the same time, there’s something about performers playing in the dark, especially when the darkness hides the ugly scaffolding and stage clutter in the shadows.

Overall, Parklife 2012 wasn’t as good as previous years or as good as I had hoped before the line-up was announced.  Photographing dance festivals is all about the live acts, and there seemed to be a lot less than in previous years, with the majority of the live acts relegated to the Atoll Stage.  However, having looked at the timetables from the last couple of years, this seems to be a bit of a false memory as it hasn’t really changed that much, at least not since 2011, although the live acts were spread out across more stages in 2010. Maybe it’s just that the calibre of live acts wasn’t up to the standards of the past couple years.  Either way, here’s hoping for an exciting lineup in 2013.

When it came around to writing something about Parklife 2012, I realised that, months after the event, I had no notes and most of what had already been written in the quick round-up post applied when thinking back to that Saturday at the end of September

When it came around to looking to select the photos to go with the posts, I found that I hadn’t edited them for the site and so had to go back through them all the photos and work on them.  Although it’s a massive pain when you have to go through a whole series of photos that you thought you had already finalised, in a way it’s a pleasant surprise to revisit the shots and be reminded of the day and all the images you took away.   It’s always good to find that there’s some really nice photos in there to show.

As with all the Parklifes I’ve been to and photographed, the photos of the crowd make up a significant proportion of the daylight images.  As long as you stick a long lens on, keep your distance and avoid getting stuck into being grabbed from all angles while wandering through the crowd for socials, it’s a never-ending source of amusement.

Another year has rolled around to the seventh anniversary of blogging.

In those seven years I have written 495 with this post now being Number 496.  It’s been a slow year of 45 published posts, especially when you consider that this time last year I was reporting a really productive year of 88 published posts over the previous 12 month period.  There was a point in the middle of last year where I did get completely up-to-date but have fallen behind once again, so much so that although it’s nearly the end of March I still haven’t put together my round-up of 2012 (or even taken a photo of my 2012 photo passes and tickets, hence last year’s photo).

Currently there’s a backlog of more than 20 posts that I’ve got to put together.  A lot of those are multi-part festival posts and, for the majority, drafts consisting of extensive notes have been prepared and just need to be formed into something readable.

Soon (maybe).