Free souvenir wristBand of Horses...

Always nice to get a freebie at a gig and this time around it was a supposedly limited edition collectible Band of Horses wristband.  I reckon that every band and venue should do this just to see if people keep them on for decades like the festival ones!

Quite interesting to shoot a band that a lot of my friends (yup, I have more than one) were talking about but I'd never heard any material of.  The stage set-up looked suitably South North American (think country/rock n roll bar in Georgia/Florida) and was a quite a change from the usual full-on wall of amps at rock and metal shows.

It's really easy to tell when a band are enjoying themselves and this is obvious by the huge smiles from their lead singer before the first note is even played (more photographic evidence over at ConcertsCaptured).

The bass player was great fun to watch (and reminded me of an old Uni friend too!) and was the epitome of being "in the moment" and/or "one with the music"!  The lead guitarist was a cool cat, although way too tall to photograph properly, I will have to have words with his parents about that.

Quite an easy gig to shoot really although for the real action shots I had to be on the ball as these were few and far between.  That's not to say it wasn't fun to shoot and it was great to shoot something a little different (bearing in mind my last two shoots were Drake and JLS)

Some absolutely amazing sounds were screaming out of the guitars throughout the whole show proving that you don't need a massive set-up and oodles of effects and what-nots, you just need to know how to play.

I can see these guys being a massive hit on the festival circuit as I imagine they are the closest most people will get to folk and country music.  The band have done a great job in bringing these genres, which are still negatively perceived by some, to a mass market.  Let's hope that this opens up doors for others, past, present and future, to do the same.

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Jolly good Light Show...

Got the chance last Wednesday to photograph the JLS show at the LG Arena Birmingham.  I think it's about the 42nd time they've played there in the last few months so there were only three photographers there which made for a nice relaxed atmosphere.  Also bumped into one of the few photographers I know, Dave Musson, and got the chance to catch-up with him, discussing mostly how we only ever seem to see each other at gigs that are the complete opposite of the music we like!  Check out some of his work over at his official website.

Got a little forgotten about by the security and had a mad dash down to the front amidst the screaming (and I mean SCREAMING!) fans.

I knew they had a flying car (yes, a flying car) to start the show and was a little apprehensive of how to get good photos from underneath such a vehicle.  Turns out it actually makes for some pretty cool photos...

Once we were allowed in front of the stage (not allowed under the flying car, maybe they hadn't quite tested the anti-grav properly?) the boys didn't disappoint in putting on a show.

Now, JLS are not my thing (both sexually and musically) by a long shot but I do understand now why they are popular.  Loads of energy, non-stop smiling, moving, dancing and everything else that makes those females in the audience scream at a pitch that I should have got some specially designed earplugs for!

They even took time to pose for a photo or two knowing that their image is just as important as their music.  That's not a bad idea in the current climate where nobody is paying for music anyway and there seemed to be as many signs in the crowd as there usually is at a WWE show.

I got enough photos to show a variety of what JLS are so good at and the full set can be seen over at ConcertsCaptured . The lights were fantastic (yes, us photographers actually care about stuff like that!) and I wish all artists would pay as much attention to that.

I didn't stay for the whole show but saw enough to know that JLS could play about another 50 dates and probably sell out each one.

You can also check out the full set over on Facebook to tag, share, comment and do all that other Facebook stuff with :)

In the beginning...

Welcome to the brand new ConcertsCaptured blog! We're pretty new to this but will be updating the blog with every event we do and may even throw on a few exclusive photos for your enjoyment too... :)