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Sunset Sounds 2009

Last week, Brisbane’s newest festival filled the Old Botanical Gardens with fantastic music on three stages over two mid-week afternoons. Sunset Sounds was brought to Brisbane by the same folk who run that festival down south called The Falls Festival. Overall it was a really nice festival and it was great to leave work and head down to the gardens and enjoy the music and the gardens.

Some of my highlights would have to have had included The Cat Empire (so great seeing them live), Tegan and Sara (haven’t got into them on the radio but live they were great), The Kooks (they were so great to photograph), Skipping Girl Vinegar (just so fun, they made me smile), Blue King Brown (no explanation needed there), I Heart Hiroshima (Brisbane, fun, crazy and great).

The gallery from Day 1 is up on The Dwarf and both days are up in Sunset Sounds ’09.

Here is a selection of photos.
Donovan
BKB
The Cat Empire
The Kooks
Sharon Jones
crazy kids
crazy kids 2
TInpan Orange
Tegan and Sara
I Heart Hiroshima
Skipping Girl Vinegar
Ash Gruwnald
bubbles
The Boat People

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Angus and Julia Stone, The Tivoli

Thursday night saw me at The Tivoli with The Dwarf for the second night of Angus and Julia Stone. What is most likely a shock to most people is that I haven’t really heard that much of the Stones prior to the concert and what I had heard, I found enjoyable but was by no means a fan. Leaving the show I appreciated them a whole lot more. However the treat for the night was not the Stones but Víctor Valdés, the support act. Man, that man can play the harp. Doing requests from the audience is always the way to go, though I was hoping he would pull out Stairway to Heaven for some strange reason but he didn’t. He did though do a Gypsy King song (I think it was Chan Chan) what had me going was of course Guantanamera. I also got to meet a few other photographers for the first time and a chance to catch up with Eleny again. Quite a nice night indeed.

The Harp Man
Victor the man

One of the things I loved watching was his fingers dart over the strings, it was so magical!
harp fingers

Doesn’t Julia just look so happy to be up on stage?
Julia

I love the focus on this one though, sigh nice borrowed glass.
Julia

Angus had his hat on all night which meant some pretty nasty face shadows so this is about the best I grabbed
Angus Stone

The siblings Stone
siblings

and the rest of the photos are over here in a gallery

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…just some words from my heart…

Xavier Rudd

Last Wednesday I went along to the Tivoli to shoot the Xavier Rudd concert for The Dwarf and had a ball 😀 It was my first gig with a true blue press pit and much to my astonishment, I was the only photographer there. Quite interesting. The support act Jeremey Fisher was a total treat and Xavier was well he was Xavier. The venue seemed to be lacking a little bit in terms of energy but it was still great music. That said when he started playing Let me be, I think the whole place just lit up smiles on faces or when he did a remarkable Australian version of Bob Marley’s classic Redemption Song in which you could feel Xavier beating in your heart. It was a good night.

Jeremy Fisher & Crowd

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Mia Dyson & Co

Last Saturday night I headed along to The Zoo for The Dwarf for the Mia Dyson & Epicure concert. You can see all the photos from the night at The Dwarf gallery. Mia Dyson reminded me how much you never know how much you will like a band till you see them live. You can hear them on the J’s day in and day out but until you see a live show you really just don’t know. Mia Dyson had just the the right amount of rock/country/etc for me, really enjoyed her set. Epicure were great as well, I had thought that they were going to be a lot more rockier before the set but they didn’t disappoint. Matt Walker was the support as well as been Mia’s guitarist and he provided a very nice welcoming set.

Epicure Mia Dyson Epicure Mia Dyson Mia Dyson, Matt Walker

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Young & Restless

Last Wednesday night I went to see Young & Restless for The Dwarf and I was quite blown away by Y&R. I only found out at the last minute that I was indeed going along, I had a little listen on myspace and was like yeah not too shabby. Live though they put on a fantastic show with lots and lots of energy 😀
Supporting them were two Brisbane bands Stature::Statue and Twist Oliver, Twist!.