Oi Va Voi in concert at The Junction, Cambridge

I had the privilege, yet again, of photographing Oi Va Voi at their Cambridge gig, kicking off the UK Tour for their third album, Travelling the Face of the Globe.

Oi Va Voi returned to the Cambridge Junction touring for their third album, Travelling The Face Of The Globe. Since the last time I photographed them in 2007, their female violinist and bassist have changed again, but the band sounded as great as ever, if not better.
While they get through violinists at a rate of knots, they’re all very photogenic, full of energy, and very gifted. Just like the rest of the band.

Again, they were supported by the jazzy and very funky grooves of Gil Karpas (see photos of Gil’s set on CantabPhotos).

More Oi Va Voi photos from the Cambridge 2009 gig can be viewed on CantabPhotos.

Steve Levi, Clarinet & Vocals
Steve Levi, Clarinet, Vocals, Oi Va Voi

Steve Levi, Clarinet, Vocals, Oi Va Voi

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Anna Phoebe, Vixen of ViolinAnna Phoebe, Vixen of Violin, Oi Va Voi

Anna Phoebe, Vixen of Violin, Oi Va Voi

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Bridgette Amofah, lead vocals
Bridgette Amofah, Vocals, Oi Va Voi

The band: Nick Ammar, Josh Breslaw, Anna Phoebe, Bridgette Amofah, Steve Levi, Lucy Shaw, David Orchant
Oi Va Voi, Band Photo

Psychosemitic, featuring DJ Filastine and Y-Love

Another of Psychosemitic’s fine events, this time in the great venue 93 Feet East, on Brick Lane. Starting the evening was DJ Filastine, who mixed live sampled-drumming with standard DJing. Impressive skills. Next up were Y-Love, a hiphop threesome of Orthodox Jews from Brooklyn, whose infectious choons feature English, Hebrew and Aramaic lyrics. Check out MySpace.com/ylove and you’ll be hooked. Before the crowd got to carry on showing off their moves on the dancefloor, a belly dancer showed how Middle-Eastern dancing should be done.

DJ Filastine
DJ Filastine

Brooklyn Hiphop rappers Y-Love
Brooklyn Hiphop rappers Y-Love

Belly dancing
Belly dancing

Belly dancing
More photographs from Psychosemitic’s event are available on CantabPhotos

Oi Va Voi @ Cambridge Junction

Oi Va Voi returned to the Cambridge Junction, almost a year since their last gig, but this time touring with their latest, eponymous, album. Performing in the main stage this time, they brought out old crowd-pleasers “Yesterday’s Mistakes”, “Refugee” and “Od Yeshoma”. New favourite “Yuri” made an even bigger impact with the fans in its encore re-playing. As was the case at their last gig, the band had a new vocalist and violinist. Bridgette Amofah seemed like she’d been singing with the band from the beginning, and the new violinist provided yet more anecdotal evidence for my hypothesis that Oi Va Voi’s female violinists are rather photogenic (see photos of Haylie Ecker and Sophie Solomon for further evidence).

Oi Va Voi's violinist

Oi Va Voi's new vocalist, Bridgette Amofah

Oi Va Voi's Steve Levi

Gil Karpas @ Cambridge Junction

Oi Va Voi returned to the Cambridge Junction, almost a year since their last gig. Again, they were supported by Gil Karpas, who improved upon last year’s great performance with some excellent guitar-playing to accompany his jazzy vocals.

Gil Karpas

More photos of Gil Karpas, supporting Oi Va Voi @ Cambridge Junction, November 2007 and December 2006

KT Tunstall @ London's Roundhouse, Halloween 2007

After a hugely-successful tour of the USA, the multi-platinum-selling artist KT Tunstall is back touring the UK for her second album, Drastic Fantastic, and the highlight of her tour was always going to be playing one of London’s largest venues, and on Halloween. I last had the opportunity to photograph KT on her last UK tour in 2005, also on Halloween. Her die-hard fans also knew that Halloween was the best time to see KT, as she and her band dress for the occasion, with stage decorations to match. Similar to two years ago, KT had “Witch” written across her top, and there were pumpkins, cobwebs and skeletons on stage, with deathly make-up for the rest of the band. For the encore, the whole band came on in Power Ranger outfits, specially imported from Japan, and KT performed a rocking cover of “Walk Like An Egyptian”. Due to the venue’s strict no-SLR policy in the crowd, I was only able to photograph the first three songs.

KT Tunstall

KT Tunstall's backing singers, Cat Sforza & Gita Harcourt
KT’s new backing singers, Cat Sforza and Gita Harcourt

KT Tunstall

KT Tunstall

More photographs of KT Tunstall’s Roundhouse concert on CantabPhotos.com

Emunah @ PsychoSemitic

PsychoSemitic organised a night of music, dancing, art and performances. The main band Emunah played some of their latest songs to the welcoming crowd.

Emunah @ PsychoSemitic

Emunah @ PsychoSemitic

Emunah @ PsychoSemitic

Emunah @ PsychoSemitic

Emunah @ PsychoSemitic

Emunah @ PsychoSemitic

Emunah @ PsychoSemitic

Emunah @ PsychoSemitic