I went back to see Primitai at the Purple Turtle in Camden. It’s a pretty “intimate” (AKA small!) venue, but the guys managed to light it up!
Guy jumped into the Audience, and the guys looked really relaxed and focussed on the stage. Even Srdjan managed a smile or 2!
Anyway here’s some shots that I took…
I’m going back in a month or so to see them playing in The Underworld, Camden – it’s one of the prime venues in London, so it should be a good gig.
I saw Guns 'n Roses at the O2 on Wednesday, but before the usual close ups, I was amazed by how much kit they used! Only some of it was in this shot. I counted 4 sound mixing desks, 3 light control desks, 1 pyro control unit, 2 video mixing desks, 8 gas control valves to produce huge sheets of flame, and a huge number of vari-lights -Oh, and a HUGE sound system!
Guns 'n Roses have a well found reputation for-going on late,Axel throwing hissy fits, and having arguments with the audience, management and security staff. None of that happened! They were only 30 minutes late-and that caught a lot of people out out, so a lot of folk were still in the bar, when they started "Early"!!
Axel's voice has all that cutting edge that he is so famous for...the songs could have come off a CD...BUT his stage presence energy and the stage-show really made it something special!
Guns 'n Roses have had more band members than the population of a small European state!
This shot is Axel with one of his 3 lead guitarists.
What got me about this guy-Richard Fortus-was how much he looked like a young Ronnie Wood.
A truly amazing night-great music, no hissy fits, and apart from missing my train home-so I finally got to bed at 3:15 in the morning a perfect evening
As well as the ol’ rockers that I’ve been to see and photograph this year, I’ve been to see some up ‘n comers as well. One of them is Primitai website here
I’d known about them for some time as the drummer is a good friend of James (They’ve known each other since they were 5!), and I had heard that the band had won the “UK battle of the bands” competition in the summer. In 2009 over 12,000 bands around the UK entered the national battle of the bands ‘Surface Unsigned Festival’. Initially an application, and example of the music was submitted, then on the basis of that each band were then invited to play at the first round in regional heats The winners then went through 5 further heats which were all live gigs leading up to the London final, which then culminated in the national final held at Indigo @ the O2 arena in London.
The scoring was based around text votes, audience reaction, and the judges vote.
So from 12,000 bands and a lot of sweat, Primitai won! and netted around £60K’s worth of goodies! So they were on their way.
I said to Chris, last time we met up, in my best “Snatch” voice, “If I ever find out you have you have played within 20 miles of Reading, and don’t tell me, I will cut your fucking Jacobs off” - he was a bit taken aback, as he didn’t know it was a quote!, and took me a bit too seriously, but he got the message. Anyway, they played in Reading last Sunday, and I went to see them.
They are really, really good, and I can see how they got to win the competition.
I took some shots at the gig, they aren’t that brilliant, but the lighting was so feeble that trying to capture them was not an easy task.
Here are some of the shots
These first 4 I put on my photoblog link here
And here are some that never made the cut
Somehow, the lead singer, Guy, found the shots I had put on Aminus3, and made contact,he seems quite happy with the shots, so I’ll go along to their next gig, and take some more when hopefully there will be a bit more light-which will make it a whole load easier to do some of the whole band together.
Guy also asked if I could mention that they are looking for a 1000+ facebook “likes”. They are doing a free promo where in return for registering with your e-mail address. you can down load a track from their latest album, so if you do that, and you like what you hear, why not click on the “Like “ button- you can claim to have helped them to Stardom!!
