The Music: Blossoms
On December 13th 2018, Blossoms brought their headline tour to a close in London, supporting their latest album release “Cool Like You”.
Bringing back their familiar and unique sound of moody organs, combined with infectious energy and catchy songwriting, Blossoms’ sophomore album charted at number 4 in the UK album chart. This is Stockport band Blossoms’ second top 10 album in as many releases, following their number 1 self-titled debut album.
The Venue: Brixton O2 Academy
Brixton Academy is one of my all-time favourite venues, both as a gig-goer and a photographer. Brixton Academy gigs just have a different sort of energy, with every band or artist aiming to stand and perform on the legendary stage.
Fuzzy Sun and Sam Fender warmed the crowd up to boiling point, with pints being thrown and a whole lot of rowdiness before 9pm.
Shooting Level : Difficult
I don’t know what we’ve done, but Blossoms’ lighting tech must really hate photographers.
The thing with live music photography, is you tend to only get the first three songs and then you’re out on your arse. So it’s probably best to pray to the gods of good lighting that you’ll be lucky. Not this time, sucker.
For the entirety of the first two songs – I Can’t Stand It and Unfaithful, the lighting setups were made up of low light and strobe flashes. RIP Jodes. Red and blue flashes, just really setting me up to spend hours trying to make these images somewhat visually appealing in Lightroom later on.
My third and final song was where I came into my own – well, I didn’t really have a choice. Honey Sweet, also one of my favourite Blossoms songs treated me to some slow and steady. Cue holding down the shutter button for a whole three minutes just to get those shots up.
And then that was it, my night’s work was over, all in about 9 minutes. And within a whirlwind 48 hours, my article was edited and live. If you’re actually interested in having a look at my article, have a gander here!
Or, if you’re in a band and are in need of coverage for your upcoming live shows, take a look at some of my previous work, or drop me a message!
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