Monthly Archive for January, 2009

Dropkick Murphys Live @ Billboard, Melbourne Australia

Published on January 29, 2009 in Gigs, Music and My Photography. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

Dropkick Murphys Live @ Billboard, Melbourne Australia

Geez, I thought the Bleeding Through gig was raucous last Friday night, it didn’t hold a candle to the blistering anthemic mayhem that was the Dropkick Murphys tonight.

With Melbourne in the midst of an intense heat wave that saw the temperature soaring into the 40’s even at 10pm, you can imagine what it was like inside the venue.

I had been instructed to meet up with the band’s tour manager at 10.15pm. Geez, they left it late enough. I went to the Box Office told them the details, got my photo pass and the band had already kicked into the first song. The venue was absolutely packed and with a three song only limit, I hastily made my way to the front and presented my pass to the bouncer.

Three songs was very, very stiff as the songs were short and I barely had time to get it all together. Again, the 17-85mm lens let me down big time. As a street lens it is fantastic, as a live music fast motion lens, it sucks. So damn slow and cumbersome. I quickly switched to the 50mm and started getting some decent shots. I’m seriously going to have to look into a decent live music lens so any suggestions are most welcome. I’m a newbie when it comes to live music shooting.

Within those first three songs, I got kicked in the back of the head twice, fell to the ground once as a body came crashing on me and after just one solitary song, I was drenched in sweat from head to toe! Holy fuck! Now this is rock and roll! This was insanity personified as the band were in fine form and the walls of the Billboard venue were dripping in sweat. You think I’m kidding? It was 40 degrees outside, it must have been 60 in here!

Third song ended and I was quickly ushered out of the pit. Fortunately I was allowed to stay for the entire set. I spent a couple of songs recuperating and then went right up to the pit barrier and parked myself infront of this massive industrial air conditioner. I was close to the stage and able to shoot some more.

All in all, a tremendous gig and one that has encouraged me to check out some of the band’s music of which I haven’t really delved into.

A hot night for rock and roll!

View the complete set of photos here.

Iron Maiden: Flight 666

Published on January 24, 2009 in Cinema and Music. 2 Comments Tags: , , .

British heavy rock legends, Iron Maiden, in association with EMI Records, Universal (USA) and Arts Alliance Media, announce that they will be releasing a feature length documentary film into cinemas worldwide on April 21st 2009. Entitled ‘Iron Maiden: Flight 666′, the movie follows the band on the first leg of their ‘Somewhere Back In Time World Tour’ in February and March of 2008 as they experienced the most ambitious and adventurous tour in rock history.

The Maiden tour plan was something that had never been attempted before on such a grand scale. Circumnavigating the globe, the band flew in a specially customised Boeing 757 airliner with their crew and 12 tons of music and stage equipment on board, playing 23 sold out stadium and arena shows in Asia, Australia and North, Central and South America in just 45 days. They played in 13 countries, also landing in Azerbaijan and Papua New Guinea en route for fuel stops, travelling 70,000km and performing to almost half a million fans – a schedule that was only made possible by having their own ‘magic carpet’ enabling them to go where they wanted with all the key elements of band, crew and equipment on board one plane, which was christened Ed Force One. Even more remarkable was that lead singer and Airline Captain Bruce Dickinson was not only to perform 23 shows, but piloted the plane for much of the way.

Check out the trailer after the jump…

Continue reading ‘Iron Maiden: Flight 666′

Bleeding Through Live @ The Hifi Bar

Published on January 24, 2009 in Gigs, Music and My Photography. 0 Comments Tags: , .

Bleeding Through @ The Hifi Bar

Well, it turned out to be a pretty exciting night. I had never been to the Hifi Bar before so I wasn’t sure what to expect. I was lucky enough to be granted a photo-pass for the night’s show but it can be a little hard to prepare for something like that when you don’t really know the venue.

When it comes to live music photography, I’m pretty wet behind the ears. I have been practicing by going to the local Route 66 gigs and have only had a genuine photo-pass once before when I shot the Angels live a couple of months ago. Other times, I have had to sneak a camera in and get a lucky couple of shots from the balcony or something like I did for DJ Shadow, Tori Amos or PJ Harvey.

Once I was granted access into the venue the usher told me I had three songs to shoot, no flash and no climbing on the stage. No problemo. The problem tho – there was no designated photo area at all. I wasn’t really sure how I was gonna pull this off and my editor needed these shots so I had to make do.

I shot some of the opening acts to get a feel for the place. I just wasn’t getting the results I wanted and the 17-85 lens just wasn’t cutting it at all. I switched to the 50mm and now we were cooking!

Just before Bleeding Through’s set I found the opportunity to mingle to the second or third row of peeps and I was in a pretty nice position. I basically stuck with the 50mm for most of the set. The crowd was incredibly wild and I found myself dodging the obligatory stage jumper every so often.

It really was an insane gig. I had basically worked up a sweat by the second or third song and I shot the entire gig. No bouncer or usher could get anywhere near to where I was so their 3 song policy was shot to hell.

Anyway, I’m really happy with the results.

Look for a full on gig review soon…

Check ‘em out at Fasterlouder and over at my Flickr page.

The Sun Shines On Melbourne

Published on January 23, 2009 in My Photography. 2 Comments Tags: , .

Some gorgeous light tonight bathing the streets of Melbourne. I took advantage of that and spent some time on the pavement armed with the camera.

Lost In Space Robot Dead

Published on January 20, 2009 in Geek, Sci-Fi and Television. 0 Comments Tags: , .

Lost In Space Robot Dead

Veteran actor and stuntman Bob May, best known for donning The Robot’s suit in the hit 1960s TV show Lost in Space, has died at the age of 69.

May died of congestive heart failure at a hospital in Lancaster, Los Angeles, his daughter Deborah said.
He was particularly fond of his Robot role, once saying he came to consider the suit a “home away from home”.

May wore the suit for hours and learned the lines of every actor in the show so he would know when to respond to them.

June Lockhart, who played family matriarch Maureen Robinson in the show, recalled how May had landed the job.

“It was one of those wonderful Hollywood stories. He just happened to be on the studio lot when someone saw him and sent him to see [producer] Irwin Allen about the part.

“Allen said ‘If you can fit in the suit, you’ve got the job’.”

Lost in Space was a space-age story about the Robinson family who were on a space mission when they became trapped in space.

The Robot was the Robinson family’s loyal sidekick, warning them of approaching disaster at every turn, although May did not provide the voice to the character.

May went on to appear in numerous films with Jerry Lewis and in such TV shows as The Time Tunnel, McHale’s Navy and The Red Skelton Show.

He and his wife lost their house in November when a wildfire destroyed their mobile home park in the San Fernando Valley.

The Monsters Of Where The Wild Things Are

Published on January 17, 2009 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

The Monsters Of Where The Wild Things Are

Do you want to get a sneak peek at the monsters of Spike Jonze�s Where The Wild Things Are? The skateboard company that Jonze co-founded, Girl Skateboards Company, will be releasing a limited series of skateboards featuring the monsters from the film adaptation.

(via)

Continue reading ‘The Monsters Of Where The Wild Things Are’

Watchmen

Published on January 7, 2009 in Cinema, Comic Books, Geek and Superhero. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

Minutemen

I’m in the process or re-reading the Watchmen. With the movie about to launch… (hopefully seeing as it is tied up in all sorts of legal conflict between Warners & Fox!)

Regardless…

Going back to this incredible graphic novel has been such a rewarding reading experience. I realized that the last time I read it, was nearly 20 years ago. God! How time just passes you by when you least expect it.

Watchmen totally and utterly blew me away when I first read its pages. It opened up a whole new world of comics for me and took me away from the standard fare ’super hero’ books of Marvel and DC and introduced me to more mature titles such as ‘Hellblazer’, ‘Swamp Thing’, ‘Sandman’, ‘V For Vendetta’, ‘Preacher’ et al.

I distinctly remember reading through this baby with suchconcentration and overwhelming joy. It was one of the best comic book experiences I had ever had.

Re-reading it has just reminded me again why Time magazine has gone so far as to name it in its top 100 best novels of all time. Yeah, it is that good!

So, with all the recent press about this movie, and there’s only more to come… there is a really cool new featurette that has been posted on the Apple Quicktime site.

Check it out here and look for the awesome Minutemen footage which looks like it has come directly from the pages of the comic book! Awesome stuff abounds!

Meanwhile… check out the Japanese trailer below…

My Magazine Fixation

Published on January 2, 2009 in Magazines. 0 Comments

My Magazine Fixation

I’m a totally self-confessed magazine junkie. I spend a lot of money on mags and sometimes I really don’t know why as I hardly get a chance to read most of them. But for the most part, they all serve as visual inspiration and they usually feed my creative hunger on a daily basis. Most of the above, they’re all essential reading and the absolute best at what they do.

1: Lifelounge: Lifelounge: Just keeps on getting better with each issue tho it is beginning to look a lot like Monster Children.

2: Monster Children: Just a classic magazine that is jam packed with content and amazing visuals each and every ish. PURCHASE ON THE SPOT!

3: Desktop: The Australian Design Digital Culture! ’nuff said!

4: GUP: Guide To Unique Photography: As the title suggests! Awesome photos, layout, visuals and style. Love this mag!

5: Coilhouse: Another gem! Still in its infancy but flick through this one and you’ll end up making an instant purchase! Gorgeous content and visuals throughout!

6: Inked: The BEST tattoo magazine out there. No contest. Beautifully photographed and amazing content each issue.

7: Deadbeat: Aussie ‘Kustom Kulture’ magazine. Cars, chicks, tattoos, kustom brilliance!

8: JPG: Amazing photography and astounding design throughout. All photos are user submitted.