Dot to Dot 2011. Nottingham.
31 May 11
I arrived late for Dot to Dot 2011. Straight away I managed to miss the first act I wanted to shoot for the day, Allie Moss. Walking into the Rescue Rooms at five past three I could see that I was missing something special. The Rescue Rooms was packed and getting in a place to actually see the stage, let alone photograph it, was going to be impossible. Note to self, get there early next time.
I decided to have a quick walk to the venues and then took my place in Rock City to catch Swimming and the soon to be huge Ed Sheeran. 2 great sets later I got over in time Trent Uni to catch the folkie guitar Benjamin Francis Leftwich.
My night was made up of the great line up in Trent Uni. I got to photograph the unstoppable energy that is Dananananaykroyd . If you are shooting them your shutter speed needs to be high. They bounce around the venue like a child with a bag of sugar (an amazing thing to witness and great fun to photograph).
A quick detour to catch Colourmusic upstairs at Pulse before heading back down to catch fresh from the states Joy Formidable. From start to finish they had the crowd eating out of their hand. You could hear the hearts of people everywhere falling in love with frontwoman Ritzy Bryan.
As they left the stage you were left wondering if it was possible to better that performance, then And You Will Know Us By the Trail Of Dead took over. Ritzy warned us how good they were the night before, but they took to the stage and dominated from start to finish in a way that took many by surprise. Trail of Dead played a high energy, cliché free good old fashioned Rock and Roll show. A amazingly powerful show and a great way to close the event at Trent Uni. I think a tweet by Joy Formiable sums it up “And fuck yeah... and you will know us by the trail of dead: STUNNING!”
Dot to Dot was a case of so many great bands to shoot, but not enough time to shoot them all topped off with glorious Nottingham sunshine.
To see the gallery of the show click HERE
PHOTO NOTES
There were too many venues to give a definitive notes. Iso 3200 was pretty standard for most venues and lighting varied greatly throughout shows and venues, so there is little to say on this. Pits were generally packed and everyone was cool. The only thing was the “hold camera above my head, push it towards front person and shoot, making sure that if I don’t get the shot at least my camera will be in everyone else’s” thing happened a couple of times. If there was a rulebook on concert photography, that should be on page one. Anyway enough of me being old and bitter Dot to Dot was a great day, bring on next year.