Monday, May 11, 2009

live at leeds: blue roses, fionn regan, duels, mi mye // DiS
the first weekend of may saw a few fine performances around the fair city of leeds. alas, i saw only a handful of bands out of the oodles that were playin. but fun was still had.

blue roses
on friday 1 may was the blue roses album launch at the brudenell. blue roses is laura groves. her voice is mesmerising. and this gig was quite someting. blue roses' album was produced by marco (and co-produced by laura) in and around bradford, and i managed to get a couple of shots with laura before she went on stage with her band (which included marco for one song). this is my fave:

laura groves + marco before the blue roses gig

and just a note, that the lighthouse-pic sneaking in behind them, is the album cover taken by our own danny north (see the original photo here). and here are a few more shots of blue roses, and the support acts jeremy warmsley and 14 corners.

blue roses

blue roses

jeremy warmsley

14 corners

this gig kicked off the live at leeds weekend, with the main event happening at various venues around the city on the saturday. i only got to four (one better than last year!) out of however-many-venues, so i don't think i got a very good spread of shots covering the entire event, but i did get to see a handful of corkin' gigs.

fionn regan
first up, fionn regan in the holy trinity church. i first came across fionn a few years ago supporting midlake at the new roscoe (in leeds). and i must say, myself and my fellow gig-goers were mightily impressed. i think i saw him again glastonbury one year (that's a bit hazy... but i do remember his 'FR' on is guitar, which kept reminding me of another FR!). the church was a good venue for him (apart from the fact he was playing when it was still daylight outside, with no real spotlights on him, so he looks a bit of a deathly shade next to the colourful stained glass windows) - there were old songs and new. some dylan-esque tunes i've read others say. i don't quite recall (as is the way when i'm snapping more often than not).

fionn regan – live at leeds

fionn regan – live at leeds

i like trains
next after a quick queue was i like trains at the cockpit. am liking their new stuff (and their old of course). but i certainly was not liking the red lighting that was on for the duration of the gig. hence, i didn't get any shots to share. but you can click here for some lovely trains shots (taken by the very talented heidi kuisma) from the night before when they played in glasgow.

duels
then there was a quick skedaddle across town to joseph's well for duels. i haven't seen duels since they last played in leeds (last year at the uni?). there have been some line-up changes since then. and it was great to have them back! i really enjoyed shooting this gig, altho it was darn hot.

duels – live at leeds

duels – live at leeds

duels – live at leeds

mi mye
the final fun of the night was to be had at the faithful brudenell. (it was fun to shoot at other venues whilst it lasted, but i'm always going to end up brudenell-bound, let's face it!) i missed mumford and sons, due to crazy queue-age (top job to nath, suzy and folks, for coping with such a mass of people). happily, i was all in place in front of the stage in time for mi mye. who made me smile, and a lot of other people smile, as they played to a packed-out room.

mi mye – live at leeds

mi mye – live at leeds

lovely end to my live at leeds this year. lots of other pics can be found in the flickr pool for the event HERE.

some of these (and other) photos also appear in galleries on the drowned-in-sound website as part of the 'in-photos' feature. see more at: http://drownedinsound.com/lists/in-photos. i'll hopefully have other galleries in DiS at some point in the future, when i shoot more bands. at the moment i don't have any gigs lined up, cos i'm off to stockholm very soon indeedy!

x