Things were put into place for the event, but in feb 1973 a slight spanner was thrown in the works when the band suddenly appeared on Top of the Pops. Surely now they would be too big to schlep up to the Fylde for £40.
Luckily they honoured the deal, and that's how Queen played at the Fleetwood Grammar School dance in in 1973.
This friend of mine organised some tickets to see a band called Transmission last night at the Academy 3 (inside the Manchester Uni Students Union building on Oxford Road). The band play the music of Joy Division. Not a "tribute" band as they make no effort to look like the original members.
He had been in touch with the band as his previous attempt to see them - four years ago - ended when the gig was cancelled. He contacted them with his tale of woe, and asked if it was all right if he took some photos of the gig. Then he asked if I fancied going.
It was a bear/shit/woods situation as you well know I'll photograph anything.
I haven't done much gig photography, but what little I have done has made me wary. The lighting can vary from close to nothing, to huge whizz bang lighting rigs. When we entered the performance space we could see that there were - for a small space - a good set of lights both at the front and the rear of the stage area.
This meant there would be light, but with some behind the band it was going to be challenging. And so it proved.
On the way into town we - Andrew, Big Mark, Buddha and I - discussed how many people we expected in the audience. Not many was our guess, it being Easter and the students not being around. And the music being suited to old gits like us.
When we arrived at the venue, there was a massive queue, which confounded our expectations. Until that is one of the bouncers explained that there were three gigs on and the queue was for Cross Faith, a Japanese electro band.
As we went in the building we were challenged by security about taking cameras in. My mate confidently explained we were doing so with permission of the band. No problem then, you'll be on the guest list.......we weren't.
We managed to contact the band and voila, we were on the list. As we entered the venue we started taking pics of the support act and were approached by security explaining we'd be able to take pictures standing between the stage and the audience, but only for three songs.
Transmission came on, we were booted out of the photo pit after four songs and then watched the rest of the set and took a few sneaky pics from within the audience.
The lighting was LED and there was a mixture of colour. Certain colours produce weird effects and so to counteract that I've converted a few of the shots to mono. It eliminates some of the weirdness in the colour and also fits in with the feeling of the band (late 1970s punk). I've also spent some time editing out some of the rubbish in the background. The shots of the bass player were spoiled by a big green "Emergency Exit" sign right behind him. Spotlights and reflections off odd bits of kit have also been removed or reduced. The second shot below shows the problems with the lights at the rear of the stage getting in the way.
An other issue was the fact the band didn't move about much. There wasn't much showmanship. So once we'd taken four songs worth of shots, we'd probably done everything we could.
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