crazybobbles

Right, this pretty much continues from the previous post where I leave the pub with Michelle and Caff to enjoy Howling Bells. Michelle and Caff were pretty much sorted with guestlisted and I had managed to buy my ticket a few days before the gig and collected it on saturday.

Anyway, we quickly made our way to Camden Town, the gig was in Mornington Crescent but that station was closed off due to engineering works and all. Once we were there we had a nice walk all the way to the venue. We were slightly worried that the gig would start before we have arrived since we got there at around 9:15 odd. Turns out the band wasnt there still! Michelle and Caff managed to get aftershow passes with their guestlists. I did contemplate whether or not I should go, Michelle did tell me she probably could get an extra aftershow pass from someone but suddenly the thought of travelling back home in the middle of the night on a sunday using the night buses suddenly brought shivers down my spine. No way was I going to take the night bus, so I decided to just leave the thought of going to the aftershow and just enjoy the gig.

Anyway, I managed to catch max and aino at the venue, they were pretty much hanging back for the gig whilst I had an urge to get to the front, and so me, Michelle and Caff went to the front :P. The funny bit was when I told Aino that I was heading to the front, I said “right we’re going to head to the front”, and she must of misheard me because her reply was “oh its ok, I dont think we’re going to goto the front”. So i told her that I was going to the front, not them haha. Was fun.

We managed to mingle our way into the front (always take the sides). We reached a point where we couldnt go any further and all. Was pretty close to the stage, about 2 layers of people in front of us. Sadly the front was infested with quite alot of tall people.

Howling Bells finally arrived on stage, the crowd roars and the band goes right at it with “The Bell Hit”. The gig was amazing, I was so glad I managed to see them play again. I was very disappointed when I was late to see them at Wembley Arena. I must say, some songs really started to hit me as being really good songs, in particular “Blessed Night” and “Setting Sun”. I really like how she uses a distorted mic (or perhaps a talk box modulated mic) to sing them. She sings it in a funny way too.

I took quite alot of photos, most of them were bad, the initial batch were bad bad, but slowly I managed to squirm my way a bit closer to the stage, one of the girls in front of me thought i was leaning my arms on her friends back to take photos and told me off, silly blind bint haha.

I eventually stood behind some tall girl and her mate who were constantly dancing to the songs the band played. Nobody wanted to stand behind her because she was ridiculously tall. Taller then me!

Anyway, I managed to squirm a few shots whenever her head moved to the left. I’m getting alot better with photo taking since I rely on shutter speed settings and really keeping my hands steady when taking the photos. I’m really happy that I’m making full use of my compact camera since I previously wouldnt have used the shutter priority functions, it would have been hardcore automatic all the way.

During the photo taking, the tall dancing girl in front of me kept wiggling her butt at my direction. It was rather distracting whilst I was taking photos and enjoying the gig haha. She did it about 7-8 times, was practically a lap dance. She was ok looking so I didnt tell her off haha

Howling Bells were fun during the gig, so were the crowd, occasionally the crowd would heckle and the band would reply to them, one in particular was a guy going “I want your babies” to Juanita, obviously it was directed at her but the guitarist replied “do you want my babies?” whilst Jaunita continued to joke around and ask the guy in the audience whether he wanted his babies and how that could be arranged.

Juanita even managed to tell a story while the band was sorting out their gear, she asked the crowd “do you want to hear a story” and the crowd jeered “yeah”, she quickly replied “i dont have a story, but if you give me a topic I’ll make something up really quickly” haha. She talked about how she didnt like potatoes, how she took a photo of a giraffe in the zoo and how psycho britney spears has become haha. So yeah, we all had a laugh and the gig ended pretty nicely (with Low low low low low happening).

Afterwards Michelle and Caff needed to use the toilet but since there was a queue we decided to loiter a bit. When the queue died down a bit I told her I was going to head off since I was pretty much wrecked from a two day meetup anyway. Not to mention that… DUN DUN DUN! I had ANOTHER howling bells gig to attend to tommorow!

So yeah, I pretty much dashed back home after the gig, Michelle did send me a text during my journey home saying how she managed to get an aftershow pass, but by the time that text arrived I was pretty much in Victoria station, the point of no return haha. I was glad I didnt regret not heading home, I really needed that time to relax and sleep from a hectic day.

Rightio…

Howling Bells part two!!!

I cant remember what I did before the second howling bells gig, I think I pretty much slept till the time I needed to get ready haha. Howling Bells was doing a signing at Virgin Megastores and Michelle had got guestlists for the signing. This meant we were allowed to watch the gig down at the side of the stage, it was a slightly fancier place but still *shrugs*.

Today I went all out and brought my DSLR camera. Since it was an instore signing there was no way I was going to get turned down for carrying my camera. This meant I can really take some nice shots to make up from the slightly shabby shots from the previous night.

Me and michelle met up at the back of Virgin Megastores where we got our guest passes, we were then sent back into the store and went down to the basement for the gig. My pass was a “Guest” pass, and it appears that photographers had “Media” passes. So I guess I was out of bounds with the photo pit people haha. After a wee bit of waiting and bantering with Michelle Howling Bells arrive on stage. Juanita wasnt wearing her crazy leopard print dress and red sparkly head band (well she wouldnt would she? she’d stink if she wore it a second time and people would say nasty things about her haha). This time it was a black jacket and some black top type thing.

During the gig, I used my new 55-200mm lens to take photos of the band from the side since the front was riddled with band photographers going nuts at the band. It was harder taking photos at this angle but the plus side was I got to shoot the entire band from this angle, and they were pretty neat.

Anyway, the snapping was awesome, I felt quite alive taking photos with my DSLR camera, its a different feeling compared to snapping them with just a shabby compact.

Eventually Michelle persuaded me to just ask the security guard whethere I could goto the pit and take photos there. The beauty of it was that you didnt need to say “could I get in, I’m “media” “. I just asked if I can get in, not telling him that I am a press photographer or that I have a guest pass instead. So yeah, he pretty much assumed I was one of them and let me in the photo pit, with the other lions snapping at poor Howling Bells haha.

I managed to change my lens back to my 18-55mm lens since I was pretty close to them. The photos were so much nicer when you’re only less then a meter away from the band.

So yeah, those are some of my photos I took for the signing. The gig itself was amazing and we managed to hang around and get a few things signed, including setlists and my album. The day was pretty nice I must say. Got quite alot of positive comments afterwards from flickr about my photos. You can compare these photos to my previous night photos or even to my photos of howling bells during placebo.