So to expand on the teaser I posted earlier this week . . . My two photo buddy affiliates Barns and Phil run a company called The Sound Gallery, whose aim is to photograph the Northern music scene in style, through both cool portraits and live gigs.
They’ve both been working hard at getting access to this gig for ages and at 12:30 that day (just as I was setting my afternoon up for cups of tea and working though a back log of editing), I got a phone call from Phil. “Whatever you’re doing, cancel it; I’ve got two press passes to U2 and I’m coming to get you.” Dull afternoon avoided.
Whether you like U2 or not it was impossible not to be impressed by the amazing show that these 4 Irish blokes manage to pull off. The rush of photographing such a high profile gig in front of 50,000 fans was like nothing I’ve experienced before. I’ve photographed dozens of events and gigs before, but this was on a whole new scale.
The basic set-up for photographing gigs is something like this: First 3 songs only, No use of flash, Get the hell out. Me and Phil are used to working fast, but the pressure was on when we realised we had about 10 minutes to nail a set of pictures.
This was the press lady, who explained to us that after the second song, the bridges would swing round to allow the band access to the second outer stage, and also to duck.
The Edge making one guitar sound like 9. Smoke machines and spot lights make my life easy
Adam Clayton, looking a bit like a Bond villain.
The stage all reminded of us of something out of of H.G. Wells novel
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