So the show itself was not really my cup of tea. The support band – The Futures seem to have a massive female following. I think this is more about looks though then the music but they put on a great show. Then for the headliners, Kids in Glass Houses are one of those bands on the verge of breaking getting the odd bit of Radio air time but never quite getting there yet. Was a great show to shoot with plenty of energy and movement on stage. Was shooting this show with flash as Newcastle basement is pretty slack when it comes to security and photography rules so If I can get away with it I do!

O2 Academy, Newcastle – 11th April 2010

So new site means the start of me catching up on the million gigs that I have been to and posting up some pictures. AFI was way back in April but I still remember as if it was yesterday. Having no confirmation for my pass that night I stuck my camera gear in my car & went down to the show as I had a ticket for me to get in regardless of if I was able to shoot or not. After seeing Sick of it All rip it up on stage I was having a chat with someone who had heard that sanother photographer had no confirmation for the gig the night before but when they had arrived there was a pass there for them. So I headed down to the Box Office to try my luck – turns out there was a pass there for me. So I nipped out to my car, grabbed my camera gear and headed back into the venue to photograph AFI.

I had seen these guys only at festivals before but having been a fan for nearly 10 years I was chuffed to have the chance to shoot them. The stage show these guys put out is unreal, Davie is quite a flamboyant front man who still managers to turn out some killer screams. Lighting was a little tough in places but still managed to get a good strong set of pictures.

So another blog up from my back log of gig blogs. I still have Blogs from AFI, Groezrock 2010, Kids In Glasses and many more to come. I may also be posting some blogs that aren’t music related for once!

I have to be honest I’m not a very big fan of Paloma’s music – mainly because I don’t know what she has really done apart from the odd song I may have heard on the Radio. The main reason for me shooting her at this show was purely because I had heard such good things about her stage performance that I was really keen to have the chance to see & photograph her live.

Her stage performance was everything I had hoped for – epic stage set up, massive walk way around the back, props, backing band in suits, and she dresses to impress. As you can see from the photographs it was something special to watch. Paloma came on stage with two large fans attached to her wrists (see above) which she sung the best part of the first sing with. She was then all over the stage giving a great performance. In her final song she got a guy up on stage from the audience to sing to.

Shootingwize this show was a dream, great lighting meaning I could shoot comfortably on fast shutter speeds and with ISO ranging from 800-1250. After the first 2 songs I was even able to pop out the telephoto lens for a few more close ups. All in all a great shoot to show and a set of images I am really proud of.

Another day, another blog from the backlog I have created over the last 2 months. Frank Turner was a show I was really looking forward to, after hearing his most recent album I became a big fan and was looking forward to seeing him. Support for this tour came from Crazy Arm & the great Chuck Reagan, Chuck was/is the singer of one of my favorite bands – Hot Water Music. There is something super special about his voice that I really love so I knew this was going to be a great gig regardless.

For Crazy Arm & Chuck Reagan the lighting was static with just reds lighting up the subjects on stage which is the worst colour of lighting a photographer can be faced with. The red ruins any sort of auto white balance your camera may try to be doing, saturation of the images go’s through the roof and cause of this you loose all details of the subject. There is only one real option to save shots like this and that is either to lower saturation down to 20-30% or just stick the images in Black & White. I’m really not a fan of Black & White for live music shots, I feel it is just cheating and is always a last resort for me. (For the record, I’m not saying I hate all Black & White it works great in portraiture and other situations I just feels it takes the edge off the live music shots) So after trawling through all the shots of the support bands in the hope that I may find some shots that I class as usable I gave up and decided that there was no hope for the red lit images. Shame really but hopefully I will get another chance to shoot Chuck in better light.

So moving on to Mr Turner – I was in hope that the guy behind the light desk would wake up and earn his money for this show but actually doing something different with the lighting. All my dreams became true when Frank came on stage and BOOM, up went the lighting.  He really did wake up as the lighting for Frank Turner was the most epic i have seen in this venue. Lights coming from all angles and enough light from the front/sides lighting the subject, meaning I was able to shoot on ISO 500-640 most of the set which is a music photographers dream!

After the first song Frank announced that the night before he was in Chicago, IL and has flown straight over to England for this show with no sleep, but despite this he put on a really powerful and passionate performance. It can sometimes get boring photographing a ‘solo’ artist and/or backing band but the passion in Frank’s music really shows when he is performing so he was a great subject to shoot. Next time he is back in Newcastle I really hope to catch him again!

Check out more pictures from this show below – let me know what you think!

All images strictly © Daniel Hase

We The Kings – O2 Academy, Newcastle – Saturday 13th March 2010

These guys were supporting You Me At Six on the last UK tour. All in all in was probably one of the worst shows I have been/shot all year.  To start with I really didn’t enjoy their music, I found them boring to watch/photograph and everything that could have gone wrong for me technically did go wrong. Turned up late missing first support band, shot 80% of these guys set on the wrong settings some how – dunno where I had left my head. Then to top it all I was told be security I didn’t have the correct access to shoot You Me At Six who I was there to shoot. So it was a crappy time had by myself on the evening of this show.

As you can see from the shots they really are pretty poor. Mainly because shooting on the wrong settings meant that I didn’t have many usable shots to choose from. I remember standing in the photo pit shooting away, looking back over what I had shot and being like – ‘Why the hell are they all over-exposed’ then noticing in the last half of the 3rd song that I was on the wrong setting to start with. Gutter!

w/ Architects & Your Demise

So back in March I went along to a dark basement at Newcastle’s Students Union to catch A Day To Remember on their UK headline tour. Only haven shot once before in this venue I was still unsure as what to expect. Was told on the way in the usual 3 songs no flash rule but the security at this venue were sound and really didn’t seem to mind what we did so got to shoot the show with flash which was a dream. It would have been extremely hard without as the lighting at this place was poor at times.

Never shot ADTR before but they are a great energetic band to shoot. The two support bands Architects & your Demise were equally as entertaining. All in all this gig had three great bands with massive personalities to photograph. Check out all the pictures below – a set I’m pretty happy with.

I was shooting this show for a new magazine I have started working for – Noise Addiction. You can check out their website HERE or view the issue that the review of this show and my pictures appeared in HERE

Ft. The Maccabees, The Bombay Bicycle Club, The Big Pink, The Drums

So nearly 3 months after the show I get around to getting this blog online. I have blogs from A Day To Remember, We The Kings, Frank Turner, Paloma Faith, AFI and Groezrock Festival all that I want to get online. I aim to have all of these up in the next two weeks. So watch this space!

Anyways, The NME Tour – First stop of the tour was Newcastle, 4 great bands on the line up all with a lot of hype about them at the moment. With it being the first night of the tour there were a stupid amount of ‘togs shooting, and to make it even more fun the photo pit had been made smaller to make space for more speakers and the security were only letting 3 ‘togs in at a time.

First band up ‘The Drums’, I managed to get myself half of song in the pit to shoot these guys, probably the best lighting of the night – well best lighting to be shooting in. Next up were ‘The Big Pink’ possibly one of the worst bands I have ever had to shoot, terrible music, horrific lighting and just plain shoddy. I got one usable shot from there set as there was no hope with lighting that bad and only having one shot to shoot them.

Waiting turns to shoot at this show was really crappy, other tog’s would take the piss and stay in for the first 1 and a half songs leaving the other 9 togs to get just half song each, the security were trying to be fair but only so much they can do I guess. Well that enough of my rambling, here are some snaps of the show.

All images strictly © Daniel Hase

So this is the 3rd and final blog from the Kerrang Tour that happened over a week ago now. Really did want to get this up sooner but you know hte score, to busy and to lazy! So the final headline act of the tour was those American guys – All Time Low. I photographed these guys last year and if I’m honest I could not name one song they play as I had hardly heard of them till I was asked to shoot them.

For the first 3 bands of this show the lighting was pretty hard work but when arriving in the pit to photograph these guys Ben Gibson & myself find out that its 3 songs with flash aloud which is pretty unheard of in the Newcastle Academy. A minute later my flash is on my camera ready to shoot. Only having photographed once in the main academy with flash nearly two years ago this was going to be strange.

Its weird but when you are used to shooting with out any flash in a venue and then are told last minute you can it really throws you. Not knowing how my photographs were going to come out I stuck my camera to the settings I felt best and shot away. I didn’t really preview any of my shots back from this set until I sat down to edit them a day or two later and I was really pleasantly surprised by my results – They came out better then I could have hoped, the stage lighting looks good even with flash and they turned out to be quite interesting to photograph as a band which made for a strong set of images.

That’s enough of my rambling anyways – have a look through the images and let me know what you think!

I was shooting this show for Change The Record – Read the REVIEW of this show or see the FULL SET of images.