The crowd awaits the on stage arrival of Gotye during Sounds in the Grounds downstairs at Manning Bar, University of Sydney

I was invited by The Dwarf to shoot Sounds in the Grounds at Manning Bar in the grounds of the University of Sydney. The event had a fairly packed line up of Australian artists, with a token New Zealand group in the shape of Salmonella Dub. The Aussies included Gotye, Wolf & Cub, Urthboy, I Heart Hiroshima, Bluejuice, The Basics and The Tongue.

I’d had the opportunity to shoot Bluejuice just the week before when they performed as support for Butterfingers at Enmore’s Forum Theatre and found them to be a very lively band, with plenty of jump shots. Also recently passing my viewfinder was both Urthboy and The Tongue when they performed at the Gaelic Club in Surry Hills. Both were great to shoot, with plenty of potential for the shot from both. Finally I Heart Hiroshima has supported Regurgitator at Sydney’s Metro Theatre the month before.

New comers who I hadn’t shot before include the headliners Gotye and Salmonella Dub, plus The Basics and Wolf & Cub, who I’d seen support Kaiser Chiefs during their recent tour. Double drum kits – you can’t beat it! Gotye’s lead drummer Wally was also The Basics drummer.

The ony thing I would like to say about the venue was how appalling the lighting was – on both stages. Upstairs in the bar area I’ve previously shot a few gigs there, including my mate’s band’s CD Launch and Final Performance, and I’ve never had as poor a lighting setup as I experienced on the night. Upstairs they barely had any of the cans (Par-58s) on, and when they did the lighting technician must have been fearful of taking them to more than 50% power. The result was the reliance on effects lights, the eight or so intelligent lights in various locations, to make up for the lack of bright enough lights. Downstairs was, if possible, even worse. The downstairs stage was makeshift, given the area was not set up as a live music venue, with temporary stage and tri-trussing for the lighting. The walls were white, and in places covered with dense black curtains which was good, however the back of the main stage was a white cyc screen, but without any block lights to light it. The sole source of lights downstairs were the effects lights, and like halogen downlights these are not designed to provide general lighting.

Speaking to the strings section of Gotye after the show, as we all moved briskly across the footbridge over Parramatta Road, their Manager was more than a little pissed off at the poor performance by the technical team. Sound checks were postponed, final checks were running late (the bottom stage was about 30 minutes late on running time due to “technical difficulties”) and when the performance occurred faulty equipment was still not replaced until a couple of songs into the set. The lighting, however, was singled out for criticism, as this is an essential part of the show and the lighting rig downstairs was severely lacking.

So with challenging lighting uniting the photographers in the pits, we all got along fairly well and were often seen comparing how we were dealing with shooting in less than ideal circumstances. There were members from FasterLouder, InTheMix, The Dwarf (me), Drum Media, Sydney University (cute blonde girl who’s name I don’t know so I can’t point to where you can see her shots) and a couple of others who I’m not too sure about.

More photos after the break or in the flickr set Sounds in the Grounds @ Manning Bar, University of Sydney.

Shot for The Dwarf

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Gotye

Salmonella Dub

Wolf & Cub

Urthboy

I Heart Hiroshima

Bluejuice

The Basics

The Tongue

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