J MASCIS. CAMBRIDGE.

"Hello", "Thanks, good night". There you have pretty much every word uttered by J Mascis during his show in Cambridge. Mascis has always been brief with chit chat and his aloofness also becomes part of his charm.

Just after 9pm, Mascis walks on stage, sits in the mic stand and amp shaped cocoon that has been created for him and, after briefly welcoming the audience, picks up a guitar and proves that for all the aloofness, J Masics is one of the best guitarists there is. With nothing more than a guitar, a loop pedal and a board of effects he keeps the crowd captivated for over an hour.

It would be easy to make the bad pun of "he lets his guitar do the talking" but Mascis' croaky, off kilter vocals and  guitar solos that somehow know just when to draw back to avoid accusations of self indulgent fretwanking, has a crowd that stare in awe at his ability with a guitar and make the hour plus set fly by despite the lack of stories, movement or acknowledgement of the audience's existence from the man there to entertain.

Dinosaur Jr classics are mixed in with material from Mascis' second album on Sub Pop and neither make the set sound disjointed. There are many highlights. If you asked 10 fans I am sure you would get 10 different answers. Personally, the ability to strip back Not The Same to something that, to my ears, sounded like perfection and had me crawling YouTube for recordings was hard to beat. The night draws to a close with covers of Mazzy Star's Fade Into You and The Cure's Just Like Heaven, both sounding as good as (or dare I say better?) than their originals. After the final "you're" of Just Like Heaven, Mascis says goodbye and leaves.

While waiting for him to take the stage I speak to someone who has seen Masics' twice on this tour and Dinosaur Jr countless times. He said something that, at the time, I thought it would be the perfect way to end this post and sum up the genius of J Masics. Unfortunately I cannot remember what he said and all I am left with is the genius of J Mascis live and a small ringing in my ears.

SOPHIE ELLIS BEXTOR. CAMBRIDGE.

Sophie Ellis Bextor is the most beautiful woman I have ever photographed. Unfortunately the light at The Junction for this show was not quite so lovely. It was a struggle, lots of heavy backlighting and use of colour throughout made things a lot harder than normal. 

ST VINCENT. CAMBRIDGE JUNCTION

St Vincent live is mesmerising. Annie Clark starts with a series of dance moves and from that moment on you don't want to look anywhere else but in her direction. An amazing and at times slightly strange show delivers exactly what you would expect. 

Lighting for the first two songs was tricky, but OK However, the third was heavy on the green, which made anything but black and white unusable. 

This show also saw me again shoot exclusively with the Sigma 35mm Art. It is a lens I love and although I missed the ability to zoom, it made me think a little more about my shots. I was incredibly impressed by the lens though and I am going to keep pushing myself to shoot primes more at gigs. I would love to be able to switch this up with an 85mm and swap through the set.

I will do a review of the 35mm Art at some point, but as a quick preview I will say it is currently my favourite lens. I would love to get my hands on the 50mm to compare and I am hoping an 85mm will be in the works soon for Sigma to persuade me to part with more of my hard earned cash.

THE FALL. CAMBRIDGE

Mark E Smith has never been the most predictable of people, no shows and terrible gigs are part of what makes The Fall a band that can either descent into a car crash in front of you or show absolute brilliance. The Cambridge show brings a little of both.

The show stars with Smith looking through a folder of lyrics through '2014' but soon the show moves into more familiar territory. Then the weirdness starts. For no particular reason, other than the fact he can, Smith walks off stage. The band exchange glances and continue to play then themselves leave the stage. Soon the band return and a roadie collects the mic and the show continues with Smith belting out lyrics from somewhere backstage. The show continues to stop start and the band leave again, only to reappear once more. Smith briefly shows his face again before disappearing back stage never to return apart from the sound of his voice belting over the speakers. Each time the band leave, the bemused crowd are left wondering if that is it? Then all of a sudden it is. 

A bizarre show, but it's The Fall, what did you expect?

DAN LE SAC VS SCROOBIUS PIP. CAMBRIDGE.

Dan Le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip was my first gig of 2014. Having shot them several times, I knew my first gig after the January lull was not going to be easy. They didn’t disappoint, it was hell.

Support acts Sarah Williams White and Itch were lit pretty badly but nothing that was too challenging. I blame them for what happened next. Their lighting lulled me into a false sense of security. I should have known better, I have shot Dan & Pip on most of their tours and have never had simple light to shoot in. When Dan & Pip took the stage, it went dark, then it stayed that way. 

The first song was dark, I’m not talking ISO 6400 dark, I am talking Marilyn Manson style dark, no point trying dark. My 5DIII simply could not focus and ISO 6400 was bringing up images like this:

1/160th f/4 ISO6400.

The dark abyss was only broken by massive flashes of backlighting. It left me standing there, shaking my head, thinking “What the hell am I going to do here?”.  The only thing that made it better was that I could understand it. The lighting from the audience's point of view was amazing and I was just going to have to battle through it.

 It stayed heavy on backlighting throughout the first three. There were moments, but they were few and far between, you had to be ready for them when they arrived. Then song four came and, as I left the pit, the clean light arrived.

 I shot a few frames from the crowd during the next couple of songs just to make sure I had some cleaner images then stayed and enjoyed the gig.The gig itself was what you wanted. New stuff mixed in with classics and on stage banter that kept everyone laughing throughout. They even added a little equipment failure for some dramatic tension.

Shooting Dan & Pip is always a nightmare, but it is an enjoyable nightmare. It makes you think and have to work hard to get a photo. No shooting a fish in a barrel here. I am sure I will be catching them when they roll into Nottingham in May. You should too.  

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CATE LE BON. CAMBRIDGE.

Arriving to collect my pass at The Junction, I was told the usual routine of “first three only” followed by “and nothing from anywhere else in the venue after that”. Thinking nothing more of it, as I entered the pit, this mantra was repeated by the security guard “Don’t know if they told you mate, but strictly first three and nothing else from anywhere after that”. Now it seemed a little strange, had some sort of reputation preceded me? Was I the target of some conspiracy theory? Then as Cate Le Bon took to the stage in Cambridge things became a little clearer.

As the stage darkened the audience was greeted by a mysterious female voice that began speaking in Welsh. To help ease the audience’s bemusement this was then followed, presumably, by the English translation, which is where the strict rules on shooting became clearer. The audience were welcomed to The Mug Museum, but asked politely not to touch or take photographs, with postcards being available in the lobby should people wish to purchase. Le Bon scowled at an over enthusiastic member of the audience who could not contain her camera phone and popped off a couple of shots from the front row. Promptly told, the phone returns to the fans pocket and respectfully, few further photos are taken. 

Musically Le Bon’s sound live roughens the edges of her retro pop sound with the show concentrating on material from Mug Museum, she (and her backing band) are tight, focussed and elevate the music to a different, slightly harder place than on record. The compact crowd all leave having witnessed another side to Cate Le Bon’s musicianship and one that hints to exciting prospects for the future.