Towards the end of 2023 I found myself at the O2 Academy Birmingham photographing the American deathcore giants Lorna Shore. It’s amazing to witness the progress they’ve made over the last few years - when I saw them last they were performing at the O2 Institute 2, for context the capacity of the Institute 2 is 600 people, the capacity of the Academy is just shy of 4000. It’s no wonder they’re growng so quickly either, sitting on the back of an incredibly well received album ‘Pain Remains’ released in 2022, forever delivering insane live shows night after night all while providing fresh interesting takes on the oversaturated deathcore genre.
o2 academy
Waking The Demon
Occasionally you’ll attend a concert which somehow feels different, special in a way, it doesn’t happen often but when it does, you just know. When I arrived at the O2 Academy and made my way into the already packed venue I knew something special was taking place, there was an energy in the air all brought together by one band from Wales; Bullet For My Valentine. When I was younger you couldn’t escape their music, it was there every time you tuned into Kerrang Radio, flicked over to Scuzz TV and rest assured their music was commonplace at every party I attended from age 15 to 25. They were featured on the front of the largest music magazines and went head to head with the worlds metalcore elite including the likes of Trivium and Killswitch Engage from the United States - at one point it was even said that they would be the next Metallica. Not exactly small shoes to fill.
Then all of a sudden there was radio silence, 2010’s ‘Fever’ while receiving some positive reviews and a few notable singles such as the simple yet catchy; ‘Your Betrayal’ had failed to hit the mark in the same way as ‘The Poison’ and ‘Scream Aim Fire’ had done so previously. Followed by the tepid ‘Temper Temper’ in 2013, Bullet For My Valentine fell out of the public eye and their two subsequent albums mostly went unnoticed, that was until 2021’s self-titled ‘Bullet For My Valnetine’. They’re back and as tenacious as ever, currently out on tour with Atreyu and Jinjer tearing up the UK and Europe. Off the back of a genuinely good album I can’t help but feel that their flame has been reignited and the show I witnessed in Birmingham was just the start of them once again taking the music world by storm.
My Last Serenade
Recently I made my way down to Birmingham’s O2 Academy to photograph American metalcore legends Killswitch Engage supported by Revocation and Tenside.
Often when I post galleries online I’ll post a large portion of my keeper images but today I want to be a little more restrictive by only sharing one image from each artist and give you a little insight behind the photo.
I want to start off with our headliners ‘Killswitch Engage’ and this image of frontman/ vocalist Jesse Leach. Bands have to work incredibly hard these days due to constant tour cycles with periods of non-stop travelling and months of non-stop shows where they have to give 110% every night.
Inbetween his energetic outbursts running from one side of the stage to the other belting out his lyrics, Jesse shown here rests for a brief instant before getting back to action. Heavy metal isn’t all sex & drugs & rock n’ roll, it’s hard work both on and off stage.
As an image itself I quite enjoy the backlight & smoke (never thought i’d say that as a concert photographer) and I like how his head is down and in shadow. I don’t think the image would have the same sense of mystery about it if everything was perfectly exposed and in view.
My next image is of Revocation bassist Brett Bamburger.
Like my first image of Jesse Leach this photo is mainly in shadow but unlike my first image which was captured during a moment of rest and peace, this shot was captured mid action while Brett was headbanging.
Revocation are an American technical death metal band from Boston Massachussetts. Their light show reflected their aggressive quick tempo music which heavily incorporated the use of strobe lighting which mirrored their abundant use of blast beats. Photographing during strobes can be very hit and miss as you’re more than likely going to be left with a bunch of pitch black frames, truth be told I often don’t photograph while strobes are in use and will often wait till the light changes to something more favourable. Which is exactly what I did here. I had already framed my image during the strobes and just had to wait for the oppurtune moment when the lights had changed and Brett was doing his thing.
My final image is the bassist of the German band Tenside who opened the show.
This is one of my favourite things about being a concert photographer and I guess in some ways it is quite self centrered but I love any interaction with any artist on stage.
The majority of concert photographers (myself included) don’t want to cause any distractions to the artists performing onstage, or the attending audience for that matter either so we don’t actively try to engage in any sort of interaction. Fact of the matter is however, we’re standing in a pit just a couple of feet away from the artists, they’re more likely to notice us opposed to one person in a packed crowd.
And I’m so glad they do, when the artist is staring right down the barrel of my lens, sticking their tongue out or simply throwing the horns it makes for such a more compelling image.
This is something which I think local bands should really take note of when starting out. When the camera is pointing in your direction, don’t shy away from it- embrace it. In the same way that you have to get over your fear of being onstage you have to get used to being in front of a camera so don’t be afraid to flip me off, I can garuantee it’ll be a lot better image compared to you just standing there staring at your fretboard.
Returning to the image itself, i’m happy with my framing of this photo and I also really like the red lighting. Red lights can often be a nightmare for a concert photographer and we often have to convert the file to black and white to ‘save’ the image but in this instance there was a nice kick of white light from the front which thankfully overpowered the red back and sidelighting. I had to desaturate the reds a fair bit so they weren’t as distracting which I think is standard practice for most gig photographers anyway but as a whole, I’m quite pleased with this image.
This type of blog post is a first for me as I don’t often go into anything deeper than the image itself but it’s been cool sitting here and trying to write and share a little insight into my mindset when taking images.
Fuelling The Fire
I will never not love photographing the mainstage at the O2 Academy Birmingham… The lights are bloody lovely. Recently I went down to shoot Less Than Jake, Goldfinger and Save Ferris on the Fireball: Fuelling The Fire Tour, here are a few of my favourite shots from that evening.
A weekend well worth it
Last weekend I went and photographed two impromptu events. No prior planning, simply went and shot them. While I wasn’t too impressed with the images produced from night number two I was still rather fond of a small handful from night one. So in no particular order here are a very quick handful of shots featuring ‘Vermillion and the Moon’ and ‘Shallow Glow’.
Split your lungs with Blood & Thunder!
How often is it that you get to photograph one of your favourite bands?
I can tell you exactly how often; pretty much never.
All that changed last night however, after 12 or so years the stars finally aligned and I was able to see the mighty Mastodon strut their stuff at the O2 Academy Birmingham. They seemed to stick to more of their expansive prog orientated material and while I do wish that they had thrown in a few more of their rocky upbeat tracks, you can’t deny how good they were still.
So I’m happy to say that Mastodon are the latest band to be ticked off my photography bucket list.
Next up: BEHEMOTH.
