crazybobbles

“Why didn’t you look!? I would!” says one of my friends as I explained to her about “that-tilly-and-the-wall-gig-when-I-was-so-close-to-the-stage-I-could-almost-see-up-Neely’s-dress”. Suddenly I began to question whether the “perv” look was in when more than two girls had encouraged me to look! Anyway, hopefully that headline and first paragraph got your attention, otherwise the “perv look” really isn’t in and I do apologise (afterall, I didn’t look!).

Neely, a non upskirt shot :p

Tilly and the Wall are awesome to watch live, I’ve already mentioned about it in my entry about them at Pure Groove, they’re upbeat, dancey and colourful (and not because Neely wore a technicoloured dream coat during the pure groove set). However seeing them at Pure Groove was clearly not enough, they played 4 songs which left me rather hungry for a full on set (nom nom). So along comes ULU; or as I call, the heaven-like venue where all shots look good and awesome. This venue had by far the best lights I’ve ever seen, they’re so bright that you’re getting the heat from it all. I was able to shoot in iso100 (which is the equivalent of getting laid in the gig photography world). A typical camera setting for this venue was shooting in iso100, with f2.8, at 1/100s shutter speed, and that’s an excellent setting for a “lowlight” indoor gig (so clearly this venue isn’t lowlight at all). But yeah, that’s all the camera porn you’re getting, more about the gig.

“FELLLLLLLLL DOWN THE STAIRRRGHS!!!!”

I usually like to talk more about the little anecdotes before, during and after the gig. There’s always some crazy thing that happens during the gigs and this wasn’t an exception. Queuing up was fine aside from listening to two extremely boring cambridge girls go on and on about stuff that had no significance in the entire human race. I was able to spot more people I’ve met from previous gigs (you seriously begin to notice these things!), though I only met all of them once I was in the venue. The ticket tout man was the same guy I saw when I was waiting at the Mountain Goats gig and he really wasn’t doing well with ticket selling, he probably didn’t follow the rules of ticket touting and didn’t know that the gig didn’t sell out so people could buy tickets on the door instead of spending £10+ on it.

Being near the front of the queue I was easily able to get through security without them even checking my bag (I think they forgot! But later on I heard that they did do bag checks and confiscated cameras so phew on my behalf!). Once at the venue I pretty much waltzed to the front, originally picking the right (knowing that I’ve been on the left side all the time and felt like a change) but later on opting to go back to the left because the damn synths of doom were in the way.

“But you’re prepared every day to make the same mistakes”

Now here’s where things get interesting, some REALLY annoying girl tells me that she reserved the front area for her friends (like 503404 of them) and asked if I could let her stand in front of me because I was tall, I said no because I was taking photos which she agreed to. She then tried to strike a conversation with me but in a very ignorant “look i’m trying to be nice because i’m so popular” kind of way. Sensing her tone I gave her sarcastic comments such as “are they snowy? are they in a club? then why are they called snow club”. Her reply was “i’m only laughing to be polite”, which I responded with “**** OFF” “polite enough to state the obvious and totally negate the politeness” or something along the lines of that (if you can come up with a wittier alternative, pretend i said that and think I sounded cool :p) Anyway I was setting up the camera so wasn’t in the mood to converse with obnoxious girls (more on that later on!).

Neely and tambourine, you should check the animation ;)

I spent the first half of the show talking to flickr people as well as Max (who decided to come to the gig because I persuaded him enough in my entries (see people listen!)), and messing/fooling around with eve (the camera). I didn’t really take proper shots of the support because I had already seen them live during CSS. They were a friendly and fun band nonetheless, always striking a conversation with the crowd and all. Most of the time watching the support band was ruined when one of the really obnoxious girls (whom I’ll call ROG from now on for simplicity sake) tried to squeeze in front, making everyone uncomfortably squashed.

“Now that I’m grown i can’t seem to find it”

Man were they annoying, not only did I have to put up with their constant phoney small talk with one another (and the number of people kept growing, each introduction more annoying than the other), they weren’t afraid of breaking the gigging equitette of subtle pushing. I eventually struck a deal with them and said I’ll only let her squish through if she let me switch to the left (it was a better photo position and had a monitor to hide my gear!). I had to shake her hand and everything for the proposition :/ I was hoping she’d just do the switch and not make me shake her hand, now my hand stings from all the bleach I used (haha just kidding).

An idea of how close I was to the stage

When I saw max I told him to squeeze through so we could talk (if he didn’t mind getting killed by ROGs) and so he did, we were immediately confronted with a lady telling us that Max was now in the way of her view (luckily she wasn’t part of the ROG squad), Max agreed to go back from whence he came and then I suddenly said “we’re just having a friendly conversation with tea and biscuits”, she immediately offered me a biscuit so I took the offer and said “now all we need is tea” and continued talking to Max until he had to go back to his original position. I think I only mentioned the tea and biscuits because I might have saw her eating one (that or tea and biscuits makes awesome talking environments).

Max explained about the makeup he had to wear at work which was pretty funny, I told him about ROG as well as how Tilly and the Wall usually roll (from my past experience of seeing them anyway). Max eventually returned to his spot, I started speaking to a cute photographer girly next to me who shared my opinions on how annoying ROG were. She was an exchange student from America, studying journalism at UCL and had a chrome bag (I have a sudden fascination with bags, but that’s another story for another time). It was a pleasant chat, after the gig I managed to talk to her some more and shared a bus journey home.

The cute thing about tilly and the wall is that they’re never really bother about the whole “oooh-i’m-not-going-to-appear-before-the-gig-starts-to-build-up-the-anticipation” vibe. You were able to catch them walking around the venue and even popping out during support band to give them a helping hand (or tap dancing feet). The cuter thing is when the stage is being setup. Last time I saw them they were all out to set their own instruments up. None of the big bands would dare to do that and though Tilly aren’t exceptionally big, they’re big enough to have roadies to do all their work. My guess is that they like to be sure the setup is just right, i mean it’s not exactly normal to have platforms setup to amp up the tap dancing.

Moody shot

Anyway, that’s enough pre gig banter, on with the show! The setlist were written on paper plates (which is all kinds of awesome) and their platforms was decorated with sequins, they used to be hardcore metal platforms but I’m guessing they prefer the woody texture of the sound. Occasionally you’d see Kianna popping out or Dereck walking on stage to set his guitar up (in which I question him about the plate setlists, mmm closeness to stage). Eventually the entire band came out and greeted us with “2 xcited” (someone was lazy when they were writing the plates).

“Let us be free, let us sing songs along”

This gig was definitely better than the one at pure groove, sound was more full and we get the beauty of hardcore lighting that not only blinds us, but makes us sweat a little due to the heat it gave off. There was more room for both Neely and Kianna (the two singers) to do their dancing as well as Jamie. Quite a lot of songs were from the new album but they still managed to fit in a few of the old classics. My highlights were Freest Man, Reckless, Bad Education and the sweet and gentle Tall tall grass, this song was once again sang with both of them sitting down to sing the song. Probably one of the best tracks in their latest album O. Beat Control was very upbeat with the band constantly fist pumping the air and having everyone follow suit. They once again covered A Little Respect by Erasure and finished off with Pot Kettle Black. Here’s them playing Tall Tall Grass, and here’s a link to Freest Man.

Taking photos of Kianna was pretty easy, I was in the right position to take some nice profile shots of her and the light was just right. I felt bad how I usually take loads of shots of Neely so I thought I’d make it all up by taking more Kianna shots tonight. Besides, any shots I took of Neely were borderline upskirt shots! I was simply far too close to Neely tonight, the skirt she was wearing was pretty short so yeah. I did take a few shots of Neely when she stepped back a bit but that was about it! The mic was also in the way so that was another reason.

Eve did a pretty good job tonight!

The setlist said 12 songs which I found very short so I was expecting an encore, and an encore did we get. They reappeared on stage (crowds screaming no doubt) and then asked for what songs they should play for the encore, Sing Songs Along and Lost Girls were one of them, but I swear I never heard anyone scream that. The one song that you could DEFINITELY (like, TOTALLY) hear the crowd screaming was Fell down the stairs (my personal favorite), that was the song we wanted and we made sure that was shoved into the encore, Kianna had trouble listening to everyone screaming the names so I eventually stepped up and put my arms diagonally and used the other hand to gesture a person falling down the stairs. Kianna immediately got it and BOOM, that song was played at the end (WOOT!). Of course, the folks from the back didn’t really see Kianna’s nod of understanding so out of nowhere we heard a terrible screech of FEEEELLLLL DOOOOOOWN THE STAIIIIIIIIIIIRRGGHS!!!…..i think some girl really wanted to hear that song badly. Don’t think they heard that though haha.

The settings are crazy, iso400, f4 and 1/120s speed. Should of used iso100 mind :p

After Fell down the stairs they fired some confetti in the crowd, and that was about it, ROG was pretty annoying during the whole gig, at one point when I was trying to get up on stage to grab a setlist (I gave another to the cute photographer who asked for it) these girls were evil enough to pull me back down so I couldn’t get it, obviously they wanted the setlist too and didn’t want me to get it. Luckily at the end of the show Neely came over and gave me the setlist (because she recognised me from Pure Groove) which was pretty neat (never had a plate setlist before). I took the confetti stick thing too and gave that to someone who wanted it (long arms really help!). That was pretty much it, spent the rest of the evening talking to fellow photographers and went home safe and sound, though somehow I felt extremely tired from the gig, most likely because I did a lot of jumping! Oh well! I think I slept at 6am because I didn’t feel like sleeping. I had an event I wanted to go to the next day… my friend max also wrote a pretty neat review of the gig, do check it out! Im more about the random anecdotes than proper journalism haha. Anyway, hope you enjoy the photos.