crazybobbles

CSS, featuring Lovefoxxxxx

Now unfortunately we’re not talking about sheets of the cascading style variety, we’re talking about Brazilian electro indie band Cansei de ser Sexy (it is quite tiring being sexy all the time). After much anticipation of the gig (well I actually bought the tickets on ebay 2 weeks ago, but the thought is still there), I was finally stood outside the venue, naturally queueing up in the wrong line (they split standing and seating into two lines) and listening to the lovely hobo looking touts mutter “tickets, buy or sell” or “got any spare tickets” in all directions. Fortunately a good book and some earphones come to the rescue to drown those damn touts.

Shepherds Bush Empire, quite a scary venue, the last time I went there I was moshed to death like crazy during a Muse gig, it has been quite a few years since I last payed my tributes to the place and I’ve pretty much forgotten what it looked like or how big it was. I did some research on how easy it is to smuggle a dslr and sadly they’re extremely strict about it. My hopes were scattered, but I was determined to get it through, it’s always an adventure and a half to smuggle something (only of the camera variety, I’m not endorsing any children or drug smuggling haha). After some careful thought and planning I inevitably purchased a backup camera and brought that along as in case my dslr was confiscated. Packing myself with two cameras I marched towards the front entrance with my trusty bag and it’s magical ninja camera hiding abilities, and so it begins.

“They’re really strict about it” kept ringing in my head, the last thing you want to do is act nervous, the nonchalant approach is the way forward. “HALT” says the man (not really, but it would be kinda biblical if he did, might post that in the suggestion box of the venue). I immediately open up my bag knowing it was that trusty bag search moment where they try and find illegal substances and professional cameras. I instantly throw in many obstacles and distractions such as “can I bring this compact camera?” and making the bag opening process as slow as possible to irritate the security and make him impatient enough to just usher me away from the danger zone.

40 seconds pass by, he was still persistant on searching the bag, I start to falter a bit, but I still keep my cool and look nonchalant as possible. Suddenly he noticed the lumps, in my bag (where I store my sneaky camera), I immediately disregard it as the padding of the bag, slightly faltering some more until he eventually found the opening of my secret ninja department. Danger! That kept ringing in my head, I immediately acted nonplassed by the situation, a contradiction was already made in regards to the fact that I have a professional camera in the bag which I claimed was padding. My heart obviously began beating quite rapidly as I tried to concentrate on blagging my way out of this one. I immediately took the camera out and showed him it. He looked confused as ever on the camera (not knowing much camera gear sadly) and started asking me about the lens of the camera. Oh fickle security guard if you looked further into the compartment all your answers would have been told. I told him that it was just the body of the camera and that it had no lenses, I concentrated on demonstrating that the camera had no lens and was incapable of taking photos, all at the same time distracting him from the compartment filled with lenses, his answer to why I carried the camera in the first place. After some explaining I looked at him in the face, there was a pause, the suspense was killing me.

“You better get your move on”

“alright” he said, there were people behind me so I’m guessing he needed to be goddamn (been reading catch in the rye) confident to bring me down (said in a crazy villain voice). I put the camera in my bag and said “can i go now?” in a slightly frustrated voice, knowing that he did all this checking to no avail. He said “yes”

VICTORY!

Man that was quite a story. First time my secret was discovered, and I would have got away with it if it wasn’t for those damn pesky kids. So yeah, once in with my freshly smugged camera I decided to camp up to the front row, that’s where I chillaxed for a bit and read up on the interweb using my mobile, couple of twitters and texts here and there notifying my epic and almost biblical adventure (if he had said “HALT”) with the security guard. Nerves slowly receded and I was back to my usual self, excited about how I’m going to pull the next trick of taking photos with the camera, being in front is by far the riskiest position due to the exposure to the security guards, I’ve learnt my lesson enough to not take photos during the support band though. There was a higher chance the guards won’t get me if I had it out DURING the headline act (because it’s hard to approach me in the crowd when the lights are all dark and everyone’s jumping like crazy).

I was stood by some friendly girls, who eventually agreed to look after my bag whilst i went out for a wee. One of them wore an adorably cute and colourful dress, we shall call her “the one with the colourful dress and black hair”. she asked me a few questions and commented on my rediculously cool phone, banter was minimal but pleasant. We were handed balloons and bottles for blowing bubbles, I already anticipated a slightly messy bubble and balloon filled gig, whilst people were blowing balloons one of the girls tried rubbing the balloon on their head to do some hair lifting action, it was pretty funny, well until they did it to me (grr i thought my hair was heavy) eventually a hair lifting fight was at handing which slowly ended in a balloon fight too. Once people settled down for a bit I began to give evil stares at the gig photographers sat in the photo bit, they always get the best shot whilst I have to struggle in the crowd. My advantage however was the fact that I stay in my spot the entire gig whilst they are shuffled off after the third song. After some painfully long soundchecks and lighting checks the lights went down, the screams appear almost instantly. So yeah, here’s the gig….

CSS Suxx were all kinds of awesome, they were very energentic and outgoing to the crowd, all attention went to the singer lovefoxx, donning a rather crazy black dress with tinsel and puffy black balls. The first song was Jager Yoga, it started of lightless and built up into a lovely climax type thing, Lovefoxx was all over the place, teasing and pleasing the crowd whilst she sang along to the thumping electro beats and basslines.

“Dont mess my holiday”

Whilst all the chaos is happening, in comes my DSLR camera, I stepped back a bit and started photolising at Lovefoxx, I kept the shots continuous since I knew I wouldn’t have much chance, the gig photographers and balloons were all at my aid, they were able to cover my from the security guard’s vision for pretty much the entire show. I had slightly miscalculated where to stand however, the guitarist was right in front of me and I seldomly got a good view of Lovefoxx, so always do some research on who stands where if you plan on shooting to the left. But Lovefoxx was quite generous though, she occasionally stood by our side of the stage and at one point even came down to talk to a fan about what alcohol they drank.

I occasionaly switched to the G9 to give that a test run but found it still hard to handle, in such low light conditions. It did however do considerably well in the filming front as I was able to film CSS playing Left Behind, one of my favorite tracks.

Note my hand during the video, right at the end I actually was able to flick Lovefoxx’s hand a bit whilst she was in a “can’t touch this” pose. An evil (but filled with childish fun dipped in toffee) laugh suddenly exits my mouth as I chuckled at the fact that I sort of ruined her “can’t touch this” pose. The rest of the gig was excellent, pumping out all the classics from Paris Hilton, Music is My Hot Sex and ending with Alala Alala. Lovefoxx was a charismatic individual and I urge you to go see the band the next time they play at your venue, you’ll won’t regret it. Photolising was pretty easy after I had the confidence that the security lady wasn’t going to tell me off, though halfway through the gig more security were at the front so I became more reserved and reluctant to take photos with the dslr (resorting in random playing shots with the G9).

The thing that annoyed me the most was the security person on the right. He gave this omnipresent look that made you think he was staring at you, going “yes, i know you’re dirty little secret, i know what you’re doing, i’m going to piledriver you after the gig“. This was greatly enchanced with another security person stood there glaring at you, making you feel guilty and nervous. The thought that they’re looking did enter my brain but when you are genuinely doing something naughty you do feel guilt and recede back into compact camera shooting. After the gig, however it turns out they’re just staring (grr damnit).

“I’m gonna get on to the table and dance my ass off ’til I die”

I said goodbye to the lovely girls I stood by headed home, enjoying a painful train delay (signal failure/selfish man commiting suicide) and spent the rest of the evening processing photos till 4am. Hope you enjoy the photos as always, sorry for the epically long story but I felt pretty satisfied in smuggling the camera into the venue and actually using it. So yeah, if you’re an aspring dslr smuggler I shall leave you with the final words, “there’s no venue you can’t smuggle a big camera into”. Take case (camera case that is).

Few more photos in my photoset