2013 Mercury Prize winners Alt-J played a hugely-anticipated show in The Olympia Theatre in Dublin. Expectations were high, the crowd was huge and the band were rather good. A fantastic light show helped things, and gave a great atmosphere to the music. Made my life nice and easy. A band also not known for running around the stage, up PA gantries and the like.
ASIWYFA, or And So I Watch You From Afar, to give them their full moniker, popped into Hot Press for a shoot to mark the release of their new opus ‘All Hail Bright Futures’. Cracking live band, and great fun to shoot in the studio too. Did a mixture of indoors and outdoors, as the weather did me a favour for a change.
Lot of buzz about these four gentlemen, and the shoot I did with them in Hot Press ended up on the cover. Read the interview with them here.
For this, myself and Mr Dave Keane of The Art Dept decided to go for a more processed ‘cinematic’ feel to the images. Or we were messing with Photoshop, something like that!
Levon Helm Tribute Night, The Sugar Club, Dublin, 19th April 2013 featuring performances from Trouble Pilgrims, Pete Cummins, Graham Hopkins and Joe Doyle from The Frames, Fiachra Gaffney, The Group, The Walls, Gavin Glass, Shane O’Reilly from Bipolar Empire, Republic Of Loose, The Lost Brothers and Valerie Francis.
Johnny Marr, The Academy, Dublin, 27th March 2013
The Vaccines, Olympia Theatre, Dublin, 8th April 2013
Well, it was the biggest planned group shot I have ever taken… 12,500 people in The O2, Dublin to be more precise. All set up, so during the latter part of the show where the lads normally do a ‘twit pic’, I was quickly ushered onto the stage, and thankfully Danny actually pointed me where to stand! Then, they chatted to the audience, which was weird as I couldn’t really hear anything. Very surreal… Then 13 secs and 44 shots later I got this in amongst it all. All helped by the wonderful planning and co-operation from the band, their crew and record label.
After all the sad news about the closure of the HMV stores in Ireland, here are some positive images of the shops through the years. Many great bands, artists and sports personalities have met their fans thanks to HMV. Various PAs and signings were an important part of the stores, and I had the pleasure of working at them for many years.
So in no particular order we have Tommy Tiernan, Quentin Tarantino, Paul Harrington, Neil Delamere, Katherine Lynch, Jack L, Imelda May, Debbie Harry, Wonderland, The Wanted, JLS, The Shoos, The Aftermath, The Script, The Coronas, Stereophonics, Shayne Ward, Shane MacGowan, Saw Doctors, Paul McGrath, Oasis, Macnas, Mundy, Jedward, Leinster Rugby, Julie Feeney, Jamie Lawson, Jack Charlton, Ham Sandwich, Gift Grub, Mario Rosenstock, Ian Dempsey, Ray D’Arcy, Fight Like Apes, Ed Sheeran, Dustin, Duckworth Lewis Method, Divine Comedy, Des Bishop , Declan O Rourke, Dave Geraghty, Bell X1, Dave Browne, CODES, Cathy Davey, Cara Dillon, Bressie, Alabama 3, The High Kings, Scouting For Girls, Josh Ritter and Royseven to name but loads.
Very much the men of the moment, The Strypes are a rhythm and blues band from Cavan. They have been name-checked by, take your pick from, Paul Weller, Jeff Beck, Elton John, Cerys Mathews. The list, I am told, goes on…
They have just signed a deal with Mercury Records and are currently preparing material for their debut long-player. Think all the cool sixties band and you are sort of close. These gentlemen can play, and I suggest you check them out soon. In the meantime, here are shots from the most enjoyable session for the Hot Press ‘Hot For 2013′ issue.
Ah yes. Setting fire to well-known musicians. That’s always fun… After a quick conflab it was decided we should do something to mark the Hot Press ‘Hot For 2013‘ issue, being the first issue of the New Year. With Villagers gracing the cover, conversation hurtled quickly towards flames. And fire. And firebombs. Etc.
Inspired by Colm Henry‘s iconic shots of Bono (the fellah from U2), holding a burning Hot Press back in the day, we thought why not do something like that. So with the pyromaniac abilities of Trevor Nolan, he having set alight to many things over the years (for college and educational purposes I stress), we devised our strategy.
So after much testing and being confident that we wouldn’t burn the place down, we did the shoot. Here are the results in photographic form. Also there is a cracking video of the behind the scenes action here, which gives you a better insight into how it all bolted together.
