One good thing about photographing gigs are the abundance of free concerts that you can attend. Better than that at every gig you have the best seat in the house and can experience the gig unlike any of the other paying punters. However from time to time things don’t really go to plan, aggressiveve bouncers, useless PR who forget to add you to the list, and moronic lighting designers who think that the paying public want to watch their favourite band or artist in complete darkness are a few of the challenged that you have to deal with. However the worst thing that can happen is getting absolutely deafened by the band. The small venues seem to be the worst, and Dinosaur Jnr. must be loudest band that I have heard since AC/DC! Almost 24 hours later and my ears are still ringing!
Dinosaur Jnr. are one of those bands who have been around for years. I remember watching them in 1989 up in Glasgow performing with Teenage Fan Club, at the time people were discussing if they, Tad, Smashing Pumpkins, Soundgarden or Nirvana were actually going to have a musical impact and breakthrough to the mainstream. A lot has happened since 1989 however Dinosaur Jnr. have come managed to survive various break ups and tonight they were on fighting form.
Back in 2005 they came back from the cold and had some favourably reviewed and attended gigs however since then they have stepped things up and had a couple of very good albums including “Farm” which is their ninth album and was released earlier in the year. In many respects this is as good as their 1987 classic ‘You’re Living All Over Me’ The show tonight was fairly well attended however mainly consisted of an older audience who evidently had been fans for a while. It’s interesting that despite being highly influential the band have failed to make the same impact and cross over to a younger audience as say The Pixes, who have sold out the O2 next month. That said they are pretty darned good and everyone reading this blog should go out an buy a copy of Farm.
Written by John Rahim
