boogada

Last weekend I flew to the UK to see one of my favorite bands: Even in Blackouts! Twice in London and in Guildford. Click on the images to go directly to the galleries of my pictures.

London:


Guildford:


Ok so here's the full story:

When I started this band-photography thing one of the first bands I got in front of my camera was Even in Blackouts, when they played the Sonic Ballroom in Cologne in February. The show was really really awesome, even though there were only like 10 people around, including the Ballroom staff. I've always been a fan of Jugheads first band Screeching Weasel and EIB were as great as SW! After the show I talked to the guys and the girl (Thats John Jughead on guitar, Gub on guitar, Philip Hill on bass, Bice on drums, and Liz is the lead singer, they pretty much do a lot of backing vocals too) and had a good time. So I went to Bochum a few days later and saw em again! Some of the photos of these shows turned out to be great. Also I listen to their albums quite a lot.

So they got to Europe again these days, but it's an UK only tour. But I didn't mind and took an cheap flight to London just to see em. It all started Saturday morning when I got to the Cologne/Bonn airport and with only a few minutes delay I got to London Gatwick. I took the train to the city and the very first thing I did was to go find that bookstore I saw at my last visit of London, some 1,5 years ago. It's awesome how huge it is. One of its floors is the size of all book stores of Bonn together. I found an extremely interesting book for my dissertation! If you get to London don't forget to check out Foyles at 113-119 Charing Cross Road! I walked around the city for some time after this and then went to Kilburn to a pub called the Red Lion to see the show.

I met everybody before the show and also the London Poppunkers, especially Sebby Zatopek and Pippa, both I had seen at the Rotterdam Rumble in September. It was nice to meet all these people again. Then we started watching the bands play. 4 of em were on the bill that night: Second in line (they were ok, a bit hardcore-ish, they filled in for Punchpuppet who couldn't play), The Dead Identities (really catchy sing-along punk, I liked them a lot), Wiservice (a reggae band! I don't listen to reggae, but they were good, just a little misplaced IMHO) and of course EIB. The sound wasn't that good, it was ok. The pub was kinda large and no good acoustics. But everybody enjoyed the show and the new songs of EIB's latest album that came out just a few days before the tour.



After the show a lot of people didn't leave and so everybody kept talking to each other, Pippa was DJaying, the pub owner was a good guy, and there was this guy who did some sort of freestyle-hardrock-rap. He just kept singing lyrics he made up out of nowhere. He asked Liz for a word and then wrote a song around it. Even when one of the guys said that sometimes a band doesn't want to hear music at all he didn't notice that he was a little annoying. We all ended up at 3 am on the streets of Kilburn to get some food. Sebby was really drunk, he even forgot that he had just gotten some money out or the machine and asked if Pippa could borrow him some cash. Pippa liked the fact that Sebby was more drunk than she was, and she kept telling everybody even the next day. Later we went to Sarah's (the promoter) house and kept talking and listening to Propagandhi. At something like 5 am we left and Sebby, Pippa and me started going home.

There are buses serving all night, so it took about 45 minutes to get from Kilburn to Pippas house, changing at Victoria station. Using a bus in the middle of the night to drive into a suburb of London is something that can barely be found in a tourist approach of the city. On the way from the busstop to Pippas house I stumbled and fell, stupid me. I still have some abrasions on my left hand, but nothing serious. Maybe that's where the pain in my left leg comes from? I dunno. I ended up sleeping on a couch in Pippas kitchen/ living room in one of these small British houses that all look the same, being build out of red bricks with a backyard and standing in line. I got to sleep at 6am.



The next day Pippa went to band practice at 1:30 pm so I also went to the city again. Got some food, wrote some postcards sitting in front of the National Gallery, walked around some more. At 4:30 pm I met with EIB at Hammersmith and drove with em to Guildford, a town about 40 kilometres south of London. First we couldn't find the venue. It turned out to be not a youth centre but a senior citizen centre!!! The promoter wasn't there, because we were early so we entered a pub for a drink. Later we went to the "venue" and it was quite amusing: There was a store inside where you could buy wool and knitting supplies, there were computers for internet training for seniors, a library, an elevator at the stairs and a canteen! Also smoking and drinking wasn't allowed. That's something you only know from all ages shows in the US! And there was this old lady who was running the place. She was nice, but I think she had no idea what was going on!



But it turned out to be a fun night. There weren't that many people coming to see the bands, but it was highly enjoyable. Opening were Capguns 'n' Coke who also put on the show. After em we went to the pub on the other side of the river again for a beer/cider/coke so we missed the second band (sorry guys!) and got back to see Even in Blackouts. The Sound was really good that night, even all the backing vocals were loud and clear! And it was pure fun. Philip found this songbook, that made everybody laugh and kept Liz from singing. John kicked his shoes into the audience (there's something about this in the lyrics of one of the new songs) hitting the same guy twice. So he told the guy to throw the shoes back at him, and got hit in the face! Pretending to be an old guy I shouted "Matloooock" at the band, so John hit me with his mic on my head.... you see: a lot of fun! After the show we said goodbye to everybody and took the train back to London.



This time we got home at 1:30 am but I had to get up at 4 am again to go to the airport. So I took a bus at something like 4:45 to Victoria and the train to Gatwick Airport. I checked in and went to the security gate. There were lots and lots of people waiting. At that day they introduced new regulations about your hand luggage and so everything took even longer than usual. You even had to take off your shoes and put them into the X-Ray machine! But I did not have to show em my Camera! I had to open the bag in Cologne, but not in Gatwick! This was a surprise, I expected a longer check of my equipment. The plane had an delay of about 30 minutes but regained some time during the flight. So at Monday noon I was back home!

I'd like to thank all the people that helped my during these days. First Pippa for accommodation and support. EIB for taking me to Guildford and allowing me to hang around. And Sebby for being a nice guy.