LIVE music photography

I have been seriously neglecting my blog of late; I have been receiving e-mails from people wondering if I have swine flu! The truth is my life has been manically hectic recently and my blog has take a bit of a back burner. Well hopefully now the silly season is upon us I will be able to dedicate more time to reviewing the various bands that I photograph.

I first came across Kasabian at the Carling 24 gig day back in 2004. The band were first on the bill and performed at 8.30am at the Barfly in Camden supporting the Von Bondies. Even though the band had not recorded their debut album, they had an arrogance and swagger about them.
Five years and three albums later the band have become one of the big live acts of the UK and recently have enjoyed a No.1 album with their third effort. The success of Kasabian has somewhat taken me by surprise as they are probably one of the most unoriginal and yobbish band’s since the explosion of OI bands in the early eighties. OK granted they had a couple of decent songs on their debut album however even though I have all three albums in my collection find it difficult to listen to more than two tracks before switching off.
Live they are even worse, Tom Meighan, their lead singer prances around like a demented lunatic and their imbecile fans enjoy nothing more than throwing beer on each other, I can’t imagine that I will be covering Kasabian again in the near future.

Written by John Rahim

Anyone who is a regular reader of my blog will know that I have seen and photographed The Tings Tings around a dozen times in 2008. Although I thought some of their performances (Hoxton Bar & Grill, January 2008, John Peel Stage, Glastonbury 2008) were some of the best gigs that I went to, their last few performances came across as tired and lack lustre.

One of the problems the band had last year was their lack of material and despite having a debut album full of top 10 singles it was difficult for them to perform a set over 45 minutes long.  The second big question was how they were going to cope with writing a follow up to a pop album which had old over a million copies in less than a year. The Ting Tings have played bigger venues than the Somerset House however tonight’s gig seemed like a special occasion. Somerset House is one of the most spectacular venues in London and only hosts a handful of summer concerts. 

The performance by the band was excellent and Katie White looked amazing in her bright green Jolly Green Giant cat suit. The band started their set with “We Walk” followed by the barnstomers “Great DJ” and “Fruit Machine”. I did hear a couple of new numbers which sounded pretty good however it will be interesting to see if they can continue the momentum and follow up an excellent debut album.

Written by John Rahim

London-based alternative music outfit, The Temper Trap kicked off the first Samsung Bebo Nights live at the Gibson Guitar Studio on Monday 6th July. The band debuted their new material to a capacity audience of music industry, press and Bebo users at this exclusive and intimate gig. The Temper Trap first attracted the attention of the music industry after playing to sell-out crowds in London, New York and LA last November, at South by Southwest in March 2009 and most recently Glastonbury and the iTunes Festival at London’s Roundhouse.
The Temper Trap’s debut album “Conditions”,which is set to be released in the UK on 10th August 2009, was recorded with producer Jim Abbiss, who was also at the controls for the debut albums by The Arctic Monkeys and Adele. The band are currently on a UK tour promoting the forthcoming album which will see them take in festivals such as T In The Park, Lovebox, Field Day and Reading/Leeds Festival in August.
Samsung Bebo Nights live at the Gibson Guitar Studio, marks Bebo’s first foray into live music events, will be a monthly live performance of established and up-and-coming music acts. Open to Bebo users this series of intimate live events will extend the reach of Bebo music offline and will feature cutting edge music talent from across the globe.

Samsung Bebo Nights live at the Gibson Guitar Studio is one strand of the Bebo-Samsung partnership that includes Bebo show ‘Beat’ www.bebo.com/beat and is part of Samsung’s longer-term commitment to music and in particular new music. Forthcoming events include sets by Little Boots and Jack Penate.

Lenny Kravitz is one of thise rather unfortunate artists whose music is so closely associates withe the late 90’s early nineties that he’s had a tough time getting press and airplay for his recent records, many of which have been as good as the likes of  “Mama Said” and “Circus”. That said his live performances have always been a sell out and tonight’s sold out show at the O2 Brixton Academy was a very hot and sweaty affair on the hottest day of the year.

Despite it being almost being 25 years since he released his first record Lenny Kravitz looks remarkably similar to as he did in the mid nineties and puts on a highly energetic and enjoyable performance.  In the songs that I photographed he preformed numbers from his latest album “It’s Time for a Revolution” as well as classic numbers such as “It Aint Over Till its Over”. I have to say that by the fouth number became quite nostaligic bringing back many happy memories form the early nineties. Lenny Kravitz certainly is worth checking out live and if you liked his older material you may try before you buy on Soptify, I am listing to Love Revlution whilst writing this which is bloody good!

Written by John Rahim

The word legendary is massively overused when describing rock stars and musicians. However there can be no doubt in the impact that B.B King has had on contemporary music. In fact I go as far as saying that without the likes of Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters and B.B King the second half of the 20th century would have sounded very differently.

At 83 B.B King is the only surviving member of the original blues gang however although being extremely frail still played with the same vigour and passion as he did decades ago. I was invited by Gibson Guitars to cover the show and take photos of B.B King with his famous ES 355 called Lucille. Story has it he ran into a burning building to rescue one of his guitars after a fight broke out between two members of the audience. Both men died in the fire which started over a woman called Lucille and since then every one of his Gibson 355’s has been names Lucille to remind him never to fight over women or run into buring buildings!

Although I was only allowed to cover the first thirty minutes or so of the show what I heard blew me away. The sheer technical ability of each of his band members was totally breathtaking, and I guess most of them were in their sixties! The music that I heard was a mixture of older songs and instrumental numbers. The gig started with a 15 minutes intrumental number followed by one of his better known songs “The Thrill is Gone” which was utterly submlime. I don’t know how much longer B.B King will be performing for however everyone  should try and see him perform at least once – Highly recomended.

Written by John Rahim