The last day of SXSW 2019 I spent seeing the excellent film Nothing Stays The Same in the afternoon, before walking over to South Congress and the Bloodshot Records party behind The Yard Dog. After dinner I went to The Continental Club to see the bands there. To me this was the perfect closing to a hectic and successful SXSW. Photo above: Ben Dickey)
Friday night at SXSW I decided to go and stay the whole night at the Mohawk before going over to The Driskill for Darling West. I have actually never been to the Mohawk before, and with both father and son Earle, Steve and Justin Townes, it was an easy choice. (Photo above: Robert Ellis)
The first full SXSW night of showcases kicked off with almost 500 bands showcasing their music at close to one hundred venues. Since Edie Brickell was playing an eleven o’clock gig, I chose to go there early to be sure to get in. That also meant that I saw two bands before her that I have never heard before, nor knew anything about. (Photo above: The Waco Brothers)
At last I am back in Austin, and the first and second night here I saw four great bands at three of my favorite clubs, The Continental Club, The Saxon Pub and The One-2-One Bar. The clubs are all situated in South Austin, which is also my favorite area. (Photo above: Chuck Prophet)
Bylarm is the Norwegian showcase festival with a Nordic and international focus. The first festival was arranged in 1998, so this years edition was the twenty second. The mix between seminars and showcases is well tested from festivals like SXSW, and it works well for Bylarm, too. (Photo above: brenn.)
Trondheim Calling will be 10 year next year, and is one of four showcase festivals in Norway, including byL:arm, Sørveiv and Vill Vill Vest. Of these, Trondheim Calling is a good runner up compared to the “old” by:Larm, which has been going on since 1998.This was my fourth Trondheim Calling since 2016, and here are the bands I saw at the festival. (Photo above: Biru Baby) Continue reading
The second half of my favorite photos from 2018 are also taken at different venues and at different times of day. When photographing concerts there are many things to consider, and light or absence of light being maybe the most important. Then there are different degrees of action – some artists jump around, while others ars just standing still. But this makes it even more interesting, no concerts are exactly alike.
This year has also been a good year for concert photography. I have attended eleven festivals and forty five different concerts, totaling more than two hundred and eighty concerts altogether. The concerts have been a good mix of styles, from different sub-genres in metal, through pop, rock, singer songwriter to Serbian pop and Argentinian tango. Here is the first batch of my own personal favorites from 2018.
We all have a soundtrack to our lives, usually the music we heard when we grew up, from when we were around thirteen to twenty years old. Some are more conscious about this soundtrack, others less. It all depends on if we were hung up on music, sports, girls/boys, etc. And some of the artists we heard at that time follow us the rest of our life. Last night I saw one of the contributors to my own soundtrack.
The Blues in Hell Festival has been a yearly tradition for me since the mid 90’s. The festival is held at Hell, a small place by the airport outside of Trondheim, Norway, and except for three years when it was called Hell Music Fest and the repertoar was pop/rock/hip hop, the festival has been true to the blues roots all the time. Being a smaller festival, they have also presented interesting and great artists a bit outside of the most commercial ones. (Photo above: The winner of the Blues in Hell Award, Jan Erik Moe)
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