Performers

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After a hiatus of many years a few magazines commissioned me to cover some of the festivals of the late 90’s. I wanted to up the ante a bit and decided to photograph the live shows with my Pentax 67 camera instead of using the usual and much easier-to-work-with 35mm cameras. It proved to be a very tough affair manually metering and focusing during the shows (for which you were granted 3 songs) but I managed to get some great shots in that period. These days I do not shoot a lot of shows, simply due to the politics involved and the scrum in the pit.

Patti Smith-Glastonbury 1999
Patti Smith stormed on stage and kicked off with a massive rant about the barriers between the audience and the stage. She spewed even more venom towards all the photographers in the photopit – not a promising start.
The photographers were not allowed to shoot her straight-on and were confined to two sections diagonally opposite her. I was lucky to have her look with that much contempt towards me, but the bunch on the other side of the stage were luckier as she was drooling saliva straight in front of them. To this day I still regret choosing the left side instead of the right.

Iggy Pop- V98
Those that have seen Iggy pop live know that he does not stand still for a second. The photopit itself was too low and his moving about made me worry about not getting a proper shot. Minutes earlier Iggy slammed the microphone stand right in front of my face (for a second I thought he was going to whack me with it, I was that close) and then he stood still for a fraction of a second…click.

PJ Harvey-V98
One of my fave shots of all time. This is a musician enjoying her own little moment.

Kiss & Ozzy Osbourne-Donington 1997
Probably the best photopit I  have ever been in, you practically stood on top of the performers. I doubt the crowd saw anything for the first three songs. This was Kiss’ comeback and they were wearing their masks for the first time in 15 years.

Lee Scratch Perry-Finsbury Park 1997
L.S.P. is a very colourful man, to say the least.
For a second he just put his foot down on the monitor and mentioned his attributes while looking straight into the lens.