Above: Strike Anywhere frontman Thomas Barnett in the Cuba Club, Galway.

The past few weeks have been nothing short of hectic but now that filming has finished on ‘Vultures‘ episode 3 and the Hype Entertainment Battle of the Bands 2008 is finally over, I’ve been slowly catching up on my workload. Then, when I heard Richmond punker’s Strike Anywhere were on tour and playing in Galway with 20BullsEach and the Lobotomies, I knew that it was about time for a road-trip.

I first met Dublin-based hardcore punks 20BullsEach two years ago, I went up to shoot the lads as they recorded demo’s for their album ‘Lost Causes’, since then I’ve been a big fan and shot them live a couple of times. One of those times, they brought Belfast “brain-dead punx” the Lobotomies along with them. The Lobotomies ended up staying in my house and drinking everything in sight, including a crate of Stella and a bottle of 70% Polish Vodka. In return, they taught me “the ways of the mohawk” and how to eyeball chav-scum at their gig in Carlow the following day.

I’d like to think my skills in gig photography, mohawk maintenance and eye-balling chav-scum have improved quite a bit in the last two years and I really wanted another chance to shoot these bands again, this was going to be an awesome gig. I’d never heard of the other support bands; ‘Cut the Reins’ or ‘Only Fumes and Corpses’ but they were all playing with STRIKE ANYWHERE, I’ve been into them since I discovered them on the first ‘Rock Against Bush’ compilation, since then I’ve been hooked. Seeing them live was a must, but getting to shoot them would be fucking awesome!

I got in touch with 20BE lead singer Gareth Cummins about the gig, he put me on to Daniel from UsVsThem Promotions and I asked could I shoot the gig, he said no problem. Now, how the hell do I get to Galway? It’s never hard to convince the Chief to go to a gig; all you have to do is say something like “roadtrip to Galway, five awesome bands for ten euro, I’ll pay for diesel and there’s fuck all else to do on a Monday night!?”, and he’ll probably reply with something like; “chalk it down!”. Road-trip on…

We left Kilkenny about 3.45pm, the journey was an expected mix of conversations about KilkennyMusic and Devious Theatre stuff, to a soundtrack of the bands we were going to see. The roads were plagued with tractors, every time we got past one there was another one, which only further dignified my rant about muckers on last week’s Sound System Podcast. The G.P.S (Greatest Pile of Shite) constantly told us we were driving through fields and rivers. Three hours and one impromtu “I need to pee” stop later we arrived in Galway. With the doors due to open at 7.30pm, we grabbed some food (Supermac’s veggie burgers are surprisingly awesome) then stood outside the Cuba Club chatting to the lads from 20BE and other gig-goers.

We had been standing outside for about 20 minutes when the door opened and Strike Anywhere singer Thomas Barnett walked out. I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to say hello and much to my surprise he stopped and chatted to us for about ten minutes. He’s such a nice guy! I asked if it was cool to shoot their set; I knew the rest of the bands would be no problem, but after my “heated encounter” with the Frames tour manager a couple of years ago I’m still weary of bigger bands; who may have asshole/ignorant tour managers who like to shout at people who already have permission from the promoters to shoot a gig but then take an attitude of “nobody fucking told me” and proceed to block all my shots until I end up leaving disappointed and with the idea that “the Frames are completely over-rated Irish pop wank anyway” cemented in my mind, and who wants to shoot bands like that!? Thankfully, Thomas Barnett seemed genuinely happy to let me shoot Strike Anywhere.

7:30pm came and went, the crowd containing all forms of coloured mohawks and pole-spikes grew and eventually the doors opened around 8pm. I went straight to the merchandise table and grabbed a Strike Anywhere t-shirt and then checked out the lights around the stage. It’s always a nice challenge to shoot in a new venue, I’m so used to shooting the venues in KK, with somewhere new it takes a while to find the best spots to shoot from, plus there’s figuring out the lighting set-up, but of course all of this is part of the challenge. Thankfully, I’ve gotten used to poor lighting in small Irish venues. The stage in the Cuba Club was better lit than most, but none of the lights were spotted properly and the back of the stage was washed in red lights meaning the drums would be difficult to shoot.

First up on the bill were a local support, melodic hardcore band; Cut the Reins. To be honest, I wasn’t expecting much, but I was instantly surprised and won over as they exploded into their energetic set, the crowd went completely nuts constantly forming huge circle-pits spinning around the floor. There was no hope of shooting from the front of stage, I stayed at the sides, testing and shooting different speeds and settings. Throughout the set, the crowd sang and chanted along, all the while stomping and diving around.  It was a great start to the gig and the crowd were eager for more.

Next up were 20BullsEach and they blasted through their own set of chunky riff-heavy songs filled with breakdowns, melodic harmonies, screams and chants. Disappointingly, I have to say that the sound didn’t do the Bulls any justice, at times the drums sounded like paint cans and a lot of Paul’s double-bass kicks and rolls were lost. This didn’t seem to have any affect on the crowd, still singing, chanting, stomping and flying around in the pit. On the plus-side, 20BE finished up with their first live performance of a brand-new song, later they told me they had fucked it up but I thought it was an awesome sneak-preview of things still to come.

The changeover between 20BE set and Only Fumes and Corpses‘ took too long. The crowd disappeared outside for some much needed fresh air; following two energetic performances the venue was filled with the expected result; a smell of sweat so strong you could taste it in the air. But when they finally took to the stage it was clear that OFAC were worth waiting for, and the crowd quickly returned to full circle-pit speed, taking the smell to new levels of “punk”. OFAC’s set was extremely powerful, filled with melodic frantic riffs and angry breakdowns, vocalist Momme spent more time on top of the crowd than on stage, either way he never let up with his awesome hard-hitting vocals. Halfway through their set I was back at the merch table snapping up a copy of their E.P ‘Read What’s In Between’ along with a t-shirt, just as the Lobotomies arrived (apparently they’re always late!).

The next changeover took a lot less time, soon the Lobotomies were thrashing their way through a whole bunch of  songs I hadn’t heard yet, they’ve changed a lot since I saw them two years ago; they upgraded to a four-piece with Dan moving from bass to guitar. The result of this change is a tighter and heavier  mix of “raw catchy hardcore punk that still manages to keep it’s melodic side and be thrashy from start to finish”, consistently filled with shouts, shrieks, howls, roars and chants from all four vocalists. Once again I’m disappointed at the fact that the Lobotomies had forgotten to bring any Cds or t-shirts. Someday…

It was pushing on 11pm when Strike Anywhere began setting up, I was getting worried that their set would be cut short after being informed that after 11pm, Cuba turns into a night-club. This was becoming evermore increasingly obvious by large bouncers appearing throughout the venue. I chatted to the OFAC drummer about playing a gig in Kilkenny (hopefully early 2009), the crowd gathered at the front of the stage once again and then Thomas Barnett grabbed the microphone screaming; “take this banner…hang it upside down”, Strike Anywhere let rip with ‘Prisoner Echoes’ and the crowd went apeshit.

This was easily one of the trickiest live sets I’ve ever had to shoot, for a number of factors; throughout the set the crowd continued with huge circle pits and stage-dives, I had no choice but shoot from the front of the pit meaning a nightmare to frame and focus, but it was so much fun constantly having to move with the crowd trying to shoot a band going nuts on stage. It was also pretty hard to concentrate on taking pictures when they were playing all the songs I wanted to hear; the high-points being; ‘To the World’, ‘Hollywood Cemetary’ and ‘Sedition’.

It was halfway through their set when a bouncer walked onstage in true knuckle-dragging fashion attempting to put an end to the constant stage-diving and crowd surfing, standing at the front of stage with his furrowed brow as he pointed and shouted orders at the crowd. He clearly didn’t understand this behaviour and wasn’t about to even try. Now, I understand the need for bouncers, and for them to ensure safety in venues but most of the time this is carried out in the form of ogres on power trips (Let’s face it, you need to be an expert in performing headlocks to get the job!). In this particular case, if he had been paying attention throughout this gig, he would have observed something I’ve rarely seen at any gig. The atmosphere was so friendly; where normally a mosh-pit is a bunch of guys running into each throwing kicks and elbows, this was certainly not the case here. Throughout the night, the crowd were stage-diving and forming circle-pits and at the first sign of anybody falling on the ground, people rushed to help them up. There was none of the usual “clicky” music scene shite, where people stay within their own little groups frowning at others. When a band wasn’t onstage, they were trashing it out in the pit supporting the other bands.

The general idea of “fuck authority” was echoed throughout the night, constantly underlining the lyrics of all the bands, it was present on the horde of band t-shirts and logos in the crowd, you could smell it in the sweaty air. And where normally on a Monday night after 11pm the Cuba Club was this bouncer’s playground, this was not the case tonight. A message that was quickly sent to him by Thomas Barnett, who although completely dwarved, simply smiled in his face before leaping out onto the crowd, who picked him up and carried him around the pit as he continued to sing. The bouncer got the message and backed off to the side of the stage, continuing his unimpressed eyeballing of the crowd for the rest of the gig.

Nevertheless, the crowd’s friendly atmosphere continued, when everyone begin chanting “Richmond punks”, Strike Anywhere seemed genuinely grateful for the reaction they were receiving. When talking to him earlier, Barnett seemed disappointed by the reaction they got in Dublin, the crowd just stood around drinking. He returned with the chant “Galway punks”. It was all very positive, reinforced by Strike Anywhere’s passionate messages on-stage and in their songs, finally finishing with ‘Sunset on 32nd’; as everyone sang along to “so we try ,to defend, together. Defend our yesterdays , defend our tomorrows…together”.

When they walked off the stage, the crowd were shouting for “one more song”. It was close to 12pm, night-club goers were already flooding in. Bouncers were shaking their head, they would not be allowed play any more songs. I packed up my gear and we left the venue, delighted to discovered that the shop across the road was serving hot food, myself and the Chief stocked up on munchies and caffeine before hitting the road back to Kilkenny. The road-trip home was quicker, not a tractor in sight, although we did have to drive around a building site Portaloo which was thrown in the middle of a country road!?

Completely giddy and with the gig still ringing in my ears I’ve quickly sorted out the abundance of shots, you can check out all my shots featuring Cut the Reins, 20BullsEach, Only Fumes and Corpses, the Lobotomies and Strike Anywhere here on my new Flickr account. As it was Strike Anywhere’s first time in Ireland, I hope they’ll be back again and hopefully I’ll get to shoot all of these bands again soon.You can also hear myself and the Chief talking about the gig and tracks from some of the bands on the 60th Sound System Podcast.

As I get back on top of my workload I’ll hopefully be getting back to more regular blogging, I’ve got plenty of upcoming shoots as well as news on Vultures episode 3: ‘The Mystery of the Night Time Refuse‘, the Lions Mane ‘Smegma’ music-video, a road-trip to the 2008 Irish Web Awards (we’re through to the final for ‘Best Music‘) and Devious Theatre’s upcoming production; it’s all very hush-hush at the moment so all I’m saying is…”30.10.08…the end begins!”.