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Clash of the Bands - Amp Fest - Heat 2 (11 photos)
#1

I'm the photographer for a Perth band competition called Amp Fest (www.ampfest.com.au) that's being held during May. It's aimed at young unsigned original bands (the majority of members must be 25 or under). They accept 12 bands for entry and then run a number of sponsored workshops followed by a 4-week competition between the bands to fight it out. The winner gets recording time plus entry into a larger state-wide competition called The Next Big Thing (www.nextbigthing.net.au) which has been the launching pad for a number of successful W.A. musicians (John Butler Trio and Fourth Floor Collapse to name but two).

I had my first shoot last night when 4 of the bands competed in Heat 2 (I was unavailable to shoot Heat 1 last week). Here is a small selection....

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1. The first band, Panama, setting up for their set. These guys were clearly the youngest of the bands. While their lack of confidence showed a bit in their performance, I really enjoyed their music. Once they've got a bit more experience under their belt they'll be fantastic.

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2. Sound-check.

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3. The second band, Artillery Road. These guys got the headbangers in the crowd to their feet.

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4. While their music wasn't really my thing, the crowd loved it and the lead singer had a fantastic stage presence and sense of humour. The band was really entertaining and great to shoot.

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5. In their set of four songs, Artillery Road did play one slightly more mellow song which I thought was excellent.

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6. Myles Vincent are a band with a unique indie sound and some great material.

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7. They had clearly been around the traps for a while too.

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8. The 6-piece We Are The Emergency was probably the most aptly-named band of the night. These guys were pure chaos (in a good way).

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9. With a huge wall of sound occassionally broken up by some quiet piano, there was a Mr Bungle feel to their music I thought.

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10. While I generally don't like thrashy headbanger music, these guys (and girl) managed to pull it off! I was loving it. They were great to photograph too.

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11. But there can only be one winner. And the winner for the night was Myles Vincent. They move on to the finals held in a fortnight.

Adrian Broughton
My Website: www.BroughtonPhoto.com.au
My Blog: blog.BroughtonPhoto.com.au
You can also visit me on Facebook!
"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler." - Einstein.
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#2

I can't get over how young and fresh faced these guys look - certainly fresher than the death metal bands I have photographed at least Big Grin

Great perspective on the event. Thanks for sharing.
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#3

Perfect Kombi!

How many lenses did you carry with you?

I particularly enjoy 3 and 7 for portraits, and 10 and 4 for overview.
6 doesn't work so well for me, as the box (transistor...?) in the front is too disturbing and the colum of the stage cuts of the top right corner too sharp.

2 is great.

Uli
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#4

Thanks.

hehe Toad, yes I know what you mean. Imagine them in 20 years time.... :/

Uli, I had most of my gear with me but tucked away safely with the event staff keeping an eye on it. I would usually walk around with just the camera and whatever lens was mounted - it wasn't practical to carry a bag with me through the audience.
I shot mainly with an EF 24-70mm f/2.8L and EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS, but #6 is with a Sigma 10-20mm and #2 is with an EF 135mm f/2L. In particular the EF 24-70 f/2.8L really earned its keep here.

I was intending to shoot more with primes (28mm f/1.8, 50mm f/1.4, and 135mm f/2) but found at 3200 ISO the light was enough to use my zooms and the venue and crowd meant it wasn't always easy to compose with a prime, making zoom lenses more convenient.

Next Friday's gig is at a different venue, so I may try a different approach.

Adrian Broughton
My Website: www.BroughtonPhoto.com.au
My Blog: blog.BroughtonPhoto.com.au
You can also visit me on Facebook!
"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler." - Einstein.
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#5

Very nice work Kombi Smile

You really captured the emotions of the singers and crowd... Wink

A work of art which did not begin in emotion is not art.
Paul Cezanne
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#6

Yes, good job you had the extra apertures there.
Really stonking results, all the moreso given some freaky lighting(love the mixer shot btw); the ultrawide+mono is a classic combo, really "ennobling" the subjects I reckon: it gives musoes an "arty" air and neatly offsets the, er, "youthfulness" of the other shots. I'd even go so far as to say that some of the colour ones are "too" clean...maybe a bit of noise/grain at pp..or getting the subjects to bite the heads off a few bats, etc;? Tongue partly in cheek here at my last comments; your shots as usual have that "ease" and confidence about them, Ade.

All my stuff is here: www.doverow.com
(Just click on the TOP RIGHT buttons to take you to my Image Galleries or Music Rooms!)
My band TRASHVILLE, in which I'm lead guitarist: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6mU6qaNx08
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#7

3 and 5 really stand out for me Adrian - great work on the whole set though.

Canon stuff.
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#8

Thanks guys.

I'm shooting the next heat for this starting in about an hour and a half!
It'll be interesting to see how much I've learned from last time, and also interesting to hear this next lot of bands.

Adrian Broughton
My Website: www.BroughtonPhoto.com.au
My Blog: blog.BroughtonPhoto.com.au
You can also visit me on Facebook!
"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler." - Einstein.
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