Traces Of The Real

The week before last should have been a big week in the life of this project as I had arranged to photograph both Cheap Trick and Nick Cave (in Grinderman mode). I’m a long-time fan of both so I was pretty excited. Even better, the Cheap Trick gig was in the Olympia, a venue that had up to now failed to succumb to my photographic advances. Unfortunately they both fell through at the last minute – sometimes people just say no – so I had to content myself with just going along to the gigs. Actually the last week has been something of a gig-going binge for me. As well as the above I also managed to catch Estel, Mike Watt, Retarded Cop and Thread Pulls (supporting Grinderman).

Anyway, all was not completely lost photographically speaking as on Friday night I did get in to do some photos in The Workmans Club, something I had been thinking about trying for a while. I had initially ruled out the idea of taking photos there, as there’s no balcony to set up the camera on, but eventually, largely due venue booker Karl’s urging, I decided to give it a go anyway. I set up the the tripod at the very back of the venue and then hoisted the camera up as far as it would go. Le Galaxie were launching their album that night, and they had two support acts on the bill too. There were not many people in when the first one, the Electric Foxx kicked off proceedings. He’s an electronica musician from Cork and the photograph above is 7 minutes of him doing his thing.

It’s not bad as a first effort at taking one of these shots in a new venue. What I discovered is that the gig room in the Workmans Club is quite dark when the house lights are down, so I will have to pump it up to f22 or f16 in future (the above shot was f32) if I want to get any detail into the area off the stage. I also realised that next time around I should really bring someone with me to help out as things got pretty difficult when the place filled up later on. Trying to concentrate on operating the camera in the dark while simultaneously trying to stop punters with pints in hand from tripping up over the legs of the tripod is not really on. However, I’m looking forward to going back and doing more stuff in the Workmans as once I get it right I think there will be some great results.

Here’s some music from the Electric Foxx ….