crazybobbles

For those who don’t know much about Okkervil River or who haven’t read my previous posts about them, they’re an indie rock band from Austin, Texas, here’s their last.fm page for you to do some more digging if you want to learn more about them. They do some pretty innovative stuff like have other bands they’ve met on the road cover their latest album “The Stand Ins” and post them on youtube (do check them out!). I saw them play live at Scala Kings Cross and at the ickle Borderline (mmm, intimate!) and always came out of the venue immensely satisfied that I’ve seen an awesome band play live. This was a step up venue wise compared to Scala so it was going to be nice seeing them play in a bigger venue with better lights and sounds. Oh and before you tell me, yes, it was Shepherds Bush Empire, the place that scares the bejesus out of me because I got caught smuggling my camera once (though I did survive and still took photos hehe). So yeah, join me on yet another journey to Shepherds Bush Empire, featuring the marvellous band, Okkervil River.

I already knew that loads of people I’ve met beforehand were going, so it wasn’t a surprise that I’d see them queueing up outside the venue ready for some gigging action. We talked about our previous gigs we’ve been to and other stuff relating to… gigs really haha. I explained to them about the revised smuggling technique that was designed specifically for Shepherds Bush, from mind games with security guards to distraction mechanisms, sometimes I wish it was easy like back in the old days where I was able to just walk in drunk (with the camera) and still pull off a camera smuggle (good times). But the long coat is the key in making the searching process a pain for security ergo having a higher chance of getting through. Anyway, we went in and once again I was able to smuggle the camera into the venue, I was worried it was the same guy who discovered my bag (he was there) but I managed to avoid him altogether Good times…

Will Sheff loves couple shots!

Once in the venue I met up with the other folks (they were in front of the queue whilst I joined the back since security love searching bags thoroughly at the beginning) and then we resumed our conversation about…. gigs. I was recommended to go see Jeffery Lewis (which I have tickets for ) who sounds like an interesting guy that sings whilst shows illustrations that he drew. After a bit of waiting the support bands came on, the first band was alright but didn’t really stand out as much as the Dodos. They were ace, the main singer strangely had a two mic affair going on which made photolising a pain, I had no idea why he had two mics because they both sound the same and he would switch them in between songs, perhaps stereo? but you really can’t pull off a stereo in a gig, it’s just a full blast of music in all directions from the PA systems. During the gig I was able to bump into a fellow photographer who was at the Noah and the Whale gig (not to mention another photographer who I’ve seen quite a lot of times in the past such as Shearwater, the “spinoff” project band founded by members of Okkervil River). But yeah, the two mic thing was weird, bands like Muse and Howling Bells utilise two mics by having one clean and one distorted but both sounded similar, any Dodo fan who’d like to share the reason why there’s two mics feel free to comment

Anyway, after the two support bands, it was time to set the stage up for Okkervil River, nearer the end of the soundtests and checks I noticed the band members coming out and doing their own gear (bless). I heard there were some changes towards the members of the band since I last saw them play. They’ve all grown beards from the last time I saw them which was pretty funny, we also have a new member to the team; Lauren Gurgiolo (singer songwriter for The Dialtones). She’s a multi instrumentalist so she had a slew of instruments at her end including Banjo, Mandalins, Guitars and the slidey-guitar-thingy-you-put-on-the-stand-and-sit-down-to-play-on-ey thing. She didn’t have a beard though. To be fair, I only realised she was a new additional to the band when she came out on stage to perform.

I originally thought she was a roadie! Oops! She rocks in the banjo and mandalin!

Once the stage was ready, it was ready to rock, the band came out and greeted us with Plus Ones. I was happy that the setlist included quite a lot of tracks from their earlier catalogue, they played… actually just read the setlist, most of the time I come back with the setlist and I should really take a photo of it to save my time from explaining the songs. Black (one of my favorites) was played as well as A Stone. The new songs were pretty sparse (which was good) and they made sure that they had a fair share of slow and quiet songs to perform. The one song I was dying to see live was Lost Coastlines. I instantly fell in love with that song when I heard it and vowed to get it on video to enjoy afterwards, and here it is:

I heckled “BANJO” right before the song came on (shame i didn’t record it) because I knew Lost Coastlines was next hehe. For those wondering why I moved the camera a bit, I was actually making it look like I was taking photos, keeping your camera steady for long periods of times makes the security guard suspicious that you’re filming the gig (and they can kick your out for that (or give you a proper telling off whilst brutally sodomising you whilst your friends watched). Not that I wasn’t suspicious already; what with donning two cameras around my neck. Though I wasn’t too afraid this time, especially when I knew I wasn’t alone…

Will Sheff with acoustic guitar...

Some photographers are right bastards

I think I’ve met the evil version of me at this gig, a few heads away from me was another guy with a smuggled DSLR camera, I didn’t see his photo pass or his presence in the photopit so I assumed he’s a smuggler like me, only a really bad one. He was wearing a big cargo jacket that made him sweat like a b****** (or like the singer from the Dodos, he was dripping after the gig!). I’m assuming he used that to smuggle his camera which was a bit silly becauase it only draws attention to you (plus it’s not sly during summers) We shall call him SUCD (sweaty uncool camera dude). I think he did the whole smuggling thing wrong, plus he did look silly wearing that coat during a gig (not that me wearing a scarf during summers makes me normal). However that wasn’t the annoying thing, the most annoying thing he was doing was taking photos at every moment during the entire gig. Most people can endure this but the bit that pisses everyone off (and I saw a lot of pissed off faces, constantly staring at him and giving him evils) is that he was snapping when the band was doing a quiet number and requested people to sshhhhhhhhhhhhut it, so instead of us listening to a heartwarming performance of A Stone. We get camera clicks every 5 seconds during the song. So yeah, twas lovely standing near a sweaty camera man who’s pissing everyone off with their camera clicks. I suppose that’s the reason why photographers are only allowed 3songs, you just become a distraction to not only the crowd but to yourself if you don’t know when to stop. I usually stop halfway to admire the music and only shoot sparsely at times when:

Will indicating to me that it's ok to take photos of him, honest

1. The lights were epic and bright
2. They were using some bitchass instrument (like the slide guitar thingy or THE MACHINE)
3. It was a rocky moment where people won’t notice the camera and the photos are more action’ey
4. There’s a person being piledriver’ed on stage (my camera was too late for that at of Montreal gig )
5. The first 3 songs are being played (good to hide behind gig photographers)
6. A guest muscian comes in

To be fair, the above list is a lie (haha i just felt like writing a list), I can get pretty sucked into photography like the SUCD but I suppose when people give you enough evils, you kinda know it’s time to pack the camera in and just enjoy the gig. In his case he was completely oblivious to how much he was pissing the people around him off, heck even I was annoyed, but for other reasons (he was using a shit lens that wasn’t appropriate for a gig!). I tried digging up flickr for other Okkervil River photos but alas none of them are him (he’s still probably processing the 20544500 unncessary shots he took at the gig haha (though I did take 600, some of which were for animation purposes)).

This time he didn't scare me when he played Westfall!

The band finished with “Unless it kicks” and came back for an encore where they played “Girl in port“, “Okkervil River song” and finally “Westfall“. I didn’t really mention this last time but Westfall scares me, mainly because when I saw them play at the Borderline, Will sang that near the end and whilst I was taking photos of him he sang/shouted “Now, with all these F***KING cameras focused on my face!”. At first I wasn’t familiar with westfall so hearing him sing that immediately frightened me, thinking that he was angry at me (even though I said hi and stuff to him before the gig) for taking photos of him. Luckily after some careful googling I realised it was only part of the lyrics (just sans the swearing). This time I was fortunately wiser to know it wasn’t about me, but yeah, there is a moral there somewhere.

After the gig I quickly swiped the setlist and went home, I hate the curfews for Shepherds Bush because it ends at 11pm meaning I got home around half past midnight! Mucho tiredissimo . So yeah, next gig, Howling Bells and Mercury Rev. unfortunately I tried getting into Mercury tonight but got bored instantly so I’m considering leaving halfway through the set if I can’t stand it haha (sorry Mercury Rev). Anyway, hope you enjoy the photos!