Having photographed 25 bands in the space of 4 weeks, January has proved to be an exceptional month of music in Brisbane. It was only when I was finishing my editing of Holy Holy that I realised just how much live music I had seen in such a small amount of time and I felt the need to summarise it all because it was fantastic!
Also I even created a lil playlist you can listen to if you want to hear the bands that i'm talking about and photographed!
I welcomed in the New Year at what I think is the most magical and lovely place ever, Woodford Folk Festival. I watched the last sun of the year go down, I embraced my friends in an amphitheatre of thousands at midnight and then spent the early hours of the morning dancing away to Tijuana Cartel. It was pure magic, there was no way this year could have gone badly with that start!
With the novelty of the New Year worn off the party then continued when I got to photograph the co-headlining tour of Bootleg Rascal and Boo Seeka, two bands that really flew up on my radar towards the end of 2015. They both totally exceeded my expectations and Boo Seeka in particular were so captivating that I must have looked like an idiot staring so intently at them wondering how those incredible voices could be real.
January has always been an exciting month for me with Big Day Out touring the country and Soundwave, Future Music and Laneway closely following but this year the festival circuit took a huge hit with most of those now not existing. Fortunately this year was the first year that FOMO was introduced to Brisbane and with such a killer line up it definitely filled that gap.
With headliners including RL Grime, Flight Facilities, Jamie XX and Skepta I was pretty darn excited to shoot it (and witness it as they are some of my favourite bands!).
One of my favourite moments was when Jamie XX reached the end of his set and began to play Loud Places. Everyone was on the hill having a boogie and out of nowhere it started to sprinkle with rain and it felt like pure bliss.
Um, I photographed Fatboy Slim?
It's been a week and i'm still in total disbelief. I literally have the coolest job ever because I get to stand metres away from my idols and capture them at their happiest and doing what they love.
Like how have I even gotten to this point?
I think this gig means so much to me now (and will continue to in the future) because he was one of the first artists I remember listening to with my parents. To think that he played such a huge role in my music tastes when I was growing up and now I can say i've photographed him, it's just the absolute coolest!
Since i'm already walking down memory lane it made sense that two days after Fatboy Slim I got to photograph Hot Chip at the Tivoli, another band that played a huge part in my music tastes when I was growing up.
I made a vow that i'd photograph three songs of Hot Chip and go home (since it was a huge week already) and then as soon as they graced the stage I realised that i'd be an absolute idiot if I left and I instead grooved on till the very end.
The photos I ended up taking on the night made me a little disappointed just because the lights were either all blue or all red and that really doesn't look that nice in photos. But instead of being all mopey I went back to my old friend Photoshop and started to play around like I did when I was learning and I ended up with the photos below. I'm actually so proud of how they turned out and it makes me happy because there some of my favourite photos I have in my archives.
And finally we've reached the last gig that I photographed for the month of January, Holy Holy. I've been a fan of this band for months now and after missing them at Splendour and never actually seeing them live, I was really happy to finish off my excellent month by seeing them.
It really felt like an intimate gig. 15 minutes before the band were due to start they started to come on stage and fine tune their instruments and stare off into the crowd and it felt nice to know that they are human and probably have nerves before gigs and that seeing a crowd is still an exciting thing.
They ended up playing a fantastic set and it was so beautiful to finally hear their album in the flesh. The lighting was heavenly and although there was no photography pit for me to stand in, the crowd let me run around and take photos which I am so thankful for as it allowed me to get the below snaps.
And finally, that's it!
So many experiences, so many memories and so many god damn catchy songs stuck in my head.
Hoped you enjoyed my stories!