A couple of photos of Alex Boyd passionately conducting the Jesus College Orchestra, during Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue.
Jesus College May Week Concert
Nerina Pallot
Both Nerina Pallot’s and Imogen Heap’s concerts were due to take place last October, but were both postponed until this week; this made for a busy week of photography, but great for my listening entertainment!
Nerina is starting her latest tour, promoting her recent album “Fires”, which contains the excellent singles “Everybody’s Gone to War” and “Sophia”, and my other favourite track “All Good People”. While she may still be unsure about how to entertain the crowd between songs, her piano- and guitar-playing, and singing, were spot on, and definitely pleased. Memorable moments from the evening include the moving finale, “Sophia”, and Nerina’s take on Bon Jovi’s “Living on a Prayer”.
More photos are available on CantabPhotos.com
Imogen Heap @ Cambridge Junction
The second of my photoshoots this evening was Imogen Heap’s concert at the Cambridge Junction. Postponed since October 2006, this was the last date of her UK tour, and her last tour performance until she completes a new album, sometime in 2008. Hounded with technical problems (misbehaving Mac and repeaters (her ‘Parrot’)), she nevertheless wowed the crowd with her voice and creativity, making all the music herself. In addition to popular favourites “Hide and Seek”, and Frou Frou’s “Let Go” (here performed bare, with just her vocals and piano), the highlight of the evening was definitely “Just For Now”, which would have relied heavily on the Parrot for backing vocals (similar to KT Tunstall’s ‘Wee Bastard’ pedal). Instead, the crowd (full of her loyal fans) offered to sing along for her, and she orchestrated a 3-part harmony, with the whole room filled with powerful harmonies – most (including Immi herself) would say that this version sounded better than ever!
I shall sort through my photos when I find time later this week, and post them all on CantabPhotos but for now (and just for now ;) here are a pair that caught my eye:
Updated 23/01/2007 – the rest of the photos are now on CantabPhotos at http://www.cantabphotos.com/view.php?album=claude/070123193949
Beach & Botanic Gardens
With 30 degree heat, and a light breeze, we headed for the beach, knowing full well that the water temperature (at Clifton Four, on the Atlantic Ocean side of the Cape Peninsula) was only about 15 degrees. While some of the braver ones (i.e. Ryan, Mark & Abi) went for a proper swim, Lauri and I were happy to dip our feet and throw a Frisbee around. As was to become quite a regular occurrence, the Three Musketeers climbed the rather large rocks at Clifton 1st Beach, while I was happy snapping away at waves, sand, boulders, and crazy people climbing rocks.
In the afternoon, we headed up to Kirstenbosch, Cape Town’s impressive Botanic Gardens. The weather can be rather variable at different points around Table Mountain, and the Botanic Gardens (on the other side of Table Mountain from the beach) were shrouded in low cloud. We enjoyed a picnic on the lawn, with some nice guinea fowl (running around, not for lunch!). We wandered around the gardens, which are beatiful on their own, but enhanced by the omnipresent Table Mountain hanging over it.
We chose this Sunday to visit the gardens as it was the last summer concert. The low-lying cloud turned into drizzle as I was wandering through the sculptures in the gardens, but stopped just as The Rudimentals took to the stage, with their reggae- and message-filled music (use a condom, don’t get AIDS). Hundreds of people enjoyed picnics on the hill, as the young fans jumped and waved in front of the stage. Oh, and the bassist sported the longest dreads I’ve ever seen.
On the way home at night, we drove up to the Table Mountain cable-car station to admire the Cape Town nightscape. Back at the apartment, we watched Armageddon (most people hadn’t seen it yet, made for great entertainment), and had an air-time paper plane competition (from our 7th floor balcony). FinnAir beat South African Airways, with BA crashing rather dismally.
Jem Photos
I went to see Jem in concert about a month ago. The main reason for going was because a couple of my best friends had been to a concert before (together), and weren’t able to come along to KT Tunstall’s amazing gig in Nottingham. Oh, we all quite like Jem, and I think I’ve now become addicted to gigs!
I’ve added my favourite photos from Jem’s gig at the Cambridge Junction to my CantabPhotos portfolio.
Jem wasn’t quite in the same league as KT, but settled into her set well, the highlights being “24”, and the band’s rocking rendition of “Sweet Home Alabama”.
There are also a few photos of the support act, Mattafix.
KT Tunstall (again)!!!!!!
I went to see KT Tunstall again on Monday, and had one of the best evenings of my life!
I’ve added all of my photos from KT’s gig in Nottingham to my CantabPhotos portfolio.
This photo seems to be most popular with visitors:
Until I get round to writing something specific for my blog, you can read my review of the evening at KT Tunstall’s website forum
I have a fan!
I just got a message from KT Tunstall saying she liked my photos! OK, so she’s really nice and contacts lots of her fans, but it still got me beaming again after last week’s encounter :D
She’s on tour in Australia at the moment, and had chance to look through the photos I took of her performance at the Cambridge Folk Festival last week – it’s rather neat that we’re, ahem, fans of each other’s work. :D
KT Tunstall
It almost seems like a dream now, but I just met KT Tunstall!! She’s SO nice!!!
I first saw KT Tunstall perform live at the Cambridge Junction back in May (my cousin first told me about her and wanted to go), and was blown away by her talent, energy, and great songs. Her performance live is an order of magnitude better than her album, which is itself fantastic. I decided against taking photos back then, and we both enjoyed the concert much more for it. Since then, her debut album has gone platinum, and she’s been nominated for the Mercury Music Prize.
So when I saw KT Tunstall on the billing for the Cambridge Folk Festival, I contacted the festival organisers and her manager to see if I could get a photo pass. The festival organisers couldn’t help me out (they didn’t get my original e-mail until it was too late), but KT Tunstall’s manager and tour manager were really helpful and arranged my photo pass and festival entrance. I only found out on the morning of her set that I could get into the festival to use the photo pass they’d arranged a while back, and still wasn’t convinced until I turned up and was given a wrist-band and guest pass!
I had a bit of a wander around, bumped into another press photographer I’d met before, who shared some useful logistical info. About 10 mins before her set was due to start, met the Media Liaison people who escorted us to the pit area. There were about 20 other press photographers there with me (from the music press, local news, photo agencies, folk magazines etc.), and we had 3 songs to get our photos. I snapped my way through a load of photos in that time, which seems like a blur now, and for the rest of her amazing set, took some more photos from the guest area at the front/side of the stage. I spent most of Saturday sorting through all of them, and they’re now on CantabPhotos, along with photos of The Proclaimers, and general shots around the festival. On first glance through the pics when I got home that night, I was worried that they were all blurred or out of focus (low light, difficult angle), but now I’m really happy with the photos I got of KT; I think my very favourite one (for lighting colours and her pose) is photo 48 on CantabPhotos (shown below).
Getting great photos wasn’t the best part of the evening though – I hung around afterwards and asked the media liaison/stage management people nicely if I could say thank you to her tour manager, for arranging my photo pass and ticket. The media liaison person let me backstage and introduced me to the assistant stage manager, who had a better rapport with the performers. I met her tour manager, Murray, who was as friendly and helpful in person as he had been in all of his e-mails while arranging my ticket for the festival. While waiting for KT and her band to finish their discussions, and then for KT to finish talking on her mobile, I spoke with Murray and a couple more musicians (Ryan, the Australian bassist of Cat Empire, and then some of KT Tunstall’s band), before meeting the lovely lady herself! Had a chat in her dressing room, (what exactly we talked about is lost in a blur now!). While she was talking to the one or two other people there, I called up my cousin and said “You’ll never guess who I’m standing next to right now……KT Tunstall!” – she wasn’t sure if I was joking, or how I’d managed it, until I gave KT my phone and they had a chat – my cousin was rather speechless afterwards! Of course I got the requisite autograph (on the concert ticket from May) and photo with her :D before she had to leave, bound for Australia the next day. I was still smiling when I woke up the next afternoon!
She’s SO nice! She truly deserves all the success and happiness that her considerable talents afford her.
These seem to be the most popular photos in the gallery:
