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20/365 # Anyone can play guitar
Radiohead were awesome. I mean like AWESOME awesome. I’ve been trying to put into words just how good they were all day but I can’t.
Thom Yorke’s voice was note perfect all night and had to be, it’s a big part of the Radiohead sound and when he hit certain notes last night everyone got shivers.
It was cool to see how they recreate the effects from the record in a live setting too, I mean I got as far as seeing that a lot of what I thought was synth is actually guitar – effects laden of course, at first I thought Ed O’Brian’s guitar was hooked up to a synth but I’m not so sure, he has a huge effects unit and must have some kind of infinite sustain pedal/switch somewhere – either that or he’s genius at controlling feedback. I thought he might be using an e-bow (it’s a little gadget that emits an electric or magnetic signal (I think! One of the two) and keeps the guitar string vibrating constantly) but I only saw him use one of those once.
They had loads of weird instruments, at one point Jonny Greenwood was using a radio to pick up live radio. Well, we think it was live radio, I’m sure he did it when we saw them at Earl’s Court in 2003. He was brilliant; forever swapping from guitar to keyboard to glockenspiel to weird unidentified instruments – sometimes playing two things at once as you do . . . he even used a violin bow on his guitar when they played Pyramid Song just like my idol Jimmy Page!
They were powerful, the sound was perfect and they seemed to judge their setlist to perfection, just as the sun was going down they played Reckoner which suited the scene perfectly – their were big grey clouds in the sky, made greyer by the impending darkness and the song just suited the mood.
The venue was great as well, Victoria Park in the East End of London. I thought Bethnal Green was a fictional place till I got off the tube there! I’ve never been to an outdoor gig before; there was a great atmosphere, really relaxed and friendly.
And I spotted a famous person! Hugo Speer (from The Full Monty amongst other things) was eating chips and a burger about 10 feet from where we were stood watching the support act (Bat For Lashes – not my cup o’ tea but they’re a good band). Which beats the other most famous person I’ve ever seen – Paul Durkin, former Premiership referee and part-time Hobbit.
I was going to try and get a shot of the t-shirt I bought at the gig but couldn’t find a good enough location. I’ve done a few shots recently in the back garden, which isn’t exactly pretty and I didn't want to do another shot out there for a while, and the light levels in our house are rubbish so I couldn’t find a room that was lit well enough to do what I wanted so I decided to kill two birds with one stone – I had to practise the new songs my band are working on so I got all my gear out in the front room and took a shot of me playing some geetar.
This is me bashing out the main riff to Bodysnatchers from Radiohead’s latest album In Rainbows. And God it’s fun to play.
I was going for a sort of inner-sleeve-of-a-record kind of shot, there’s several versions hanging around where I’ve colour-popped the body of my Les Paul, or layered several shots and played around with the opacity to merge the colours etc but I decided to keep it simple in the end.
Back to work tomorrow, dunno how I’m going to concentrate with the gig still ringing in my ears . . .
20/365 # Anyone can play guitar
Radiohead were awesome. I mean like AWESOME awesome. I’ve been trying to put into words just how good they were all day but I can’t.
Thom Yorke’s voice was note perfect all night and had to be, it’s a big part of the Radiohead sound and when he hit certain notes last night everyone got shivers.
It was cool to see how they recreate the effects from the record in a live setting too, I mean I got as far as seeing that a lot of what I thought was synth is actually guitar – effects laden of course, at first I thought Ed O’Brian’s guitar was hooked up to a synth but I’m not so sure, he has a huge effects unit and must have some kind of infinite sustain pedal/switch somewhere – either that or he’s genius at controlling feedback. I thought he might be using an e-bow (it’s a little gadget that emits an electric or magnetic signal (I think! One of the two) and keeps the guitar string vibrating constantly) but I only saw him use one of those once.
They had loads of weird instruments, at one point Jonny Greenwood was using a radio to pick up live radio. Well, we think it was live radio, I’m sure he did it when we saw them at Earl’s Court in 2003. He was brilliant; forever swapping from guitar to keyboard to glockenspiel to weird unidentified instruments – sometimes playing two things at once as you do . . . he even used a violin bow on his guitar when they played Pyramid Song just like my idol Jimmy Page!
They were powerful, the sound was perfect and they seemed to judge their setlist to perfection, just as the sun was going down they played Reckoner which suited the scene perfectly – their were big grey clouds in the sky, made greyer by the impending darkness and the song just suited the mood.
The venue was great as well, Victoria Park in the East End of London. I thought Bethnal Green was a fictional place till I got off the tube there! I’ve never been to an outdoor gig before; there was a great atmosphere, really relaxed and friendly.
And I spotted a famous person! Hugo Speer (from The Full Monty amongst other things) was eating chips and a burger about 10 feet from where we were stood watching the support act (Bat For Lashes – not my cup o’ tea but they’re a good band). Which beats the other most famous person I’ve ever seen – Paul Durkin, former Premiership referee and part-time Hobbit.
I was going to try and get a shot of the t-shirt I bought at the gig but couldn’t find a good enough location. I’ve done a few shots recently in the back garden, which isn’t exactly pretty and I didn't want to do another shot out there for a while, and the light levels in our house are rubbish so I couldn’t find a room that was lit well enough to do what I wanted so I decided to kill two birds with one stone – I had to practise the new songs my band are working on so I got all my gear out in the front room and took a shot of me playing some geetar.
This is me bashing out the main riff to Bodysnatchers from Radiohead’s latest album In Rainbows. And God it’s fun to play.
I was going for a sort of inner-sleeve-of-a-record kind of shot, there’s several versions hanging around where I’ve colour-popped the body of my Les Paul, or layered several shots and played around with the opacity to merge the colours etc but I decided to keep it simple in the end.
Back to work tomorrow, dunno how I’m going to concentrate with the gig still ringing in my ears . . .