Blondie in Wolverhampton
When I was ten years old Debbie Harry was my first ever schoolboy crush.
All these years later she may not look quite like she did in the Heart Of Glass video but she still rocks.
Here are a few pics from last night’s Blondie gig at Wolverhampton Civic Hall….
U2 in Cardiff
As a music photographer I’m quite often asked what band I’d most like to photograph. There are only 2 bands that spring to mind immediately. One is Pearl Jam – my favourite band. I saw them last week in Manchester but never had a photo pass unfortunately. The second band is U2.
I grew up listening to U2 after hearing Live Under A Blood Red Sky and then being blown away by songs like Bad (still my favourite U2 song) and then The Joshua Tree. I even share my birthday with Bono!
I haven’t loved recent albums as much but U2 will always be an important band for me and so it was a privilege to be one of a handful of photographers accredited to shoot their gig on Saturday at Cardiff’s humungous Millennium Stadium along with 70,000 fans.
Here are a few pictures from the gig..
Download Festival 2009
For the past few years I’ve been lucky enough to be invited to photograph some of the UK’s biggest music festivals and probably my favourite is the Download Festival at Donington Park which sees the best rock, metal, hardcore and punk bands play across four stages over three days.
This year saw some of the most legendary bands ever grace the main stage while plenty of great new bands could be found rocking the smaller stages. The weather was glorious all weekend and, although I had to miss the Saturday due to a booked wedding, I got to shoot a ton of cool bands, including some bands I grew up listening to when I was at school.
After choosing my favourite images from the weekend I still had over 500 photos so here are just a small selection from Friday and Sunday at the festival….
Faith No More
Korn
The return of Limp Bizkit
Bring Me The Horizon
The infamous Dio t-shirt with shockingly bad rogue apostrophe!
Ex Guns n Roses/Velvet Revolver bassist, Duff McKagen
A quick backstage shot of Montreal band Voivod. I saw them in London 23 years ago when I was at school!
Killswitch Engage
Parkway Drive
A Day To Remember
Motley Crue refused to allow any photographers in the pit in front of the stage. Maybe Vince Neil is worried we might photograph his beer gut! I tried to grab a picture from the crowd but it wasn’t easy..
And my favourite band of the weekend – the mighty Meshuggah
Sunday started early with Trigger The Bloodshed. It’s a weird experience watching brutal death metal bands on a Sunday morning in blazing sunshine!
Then I grabbed the guys from Suicide Silence backstage for a couple of portraits before they went onstage.
Sunday on the mainstage was all about classic rock and I have to admit I thoroughly enjoyed Journey.
And what better way to spend a Sunday afternoon in the sun than watching ZZ Top!?
If you haven’t heard about Steel Panther yet.. you will! Not to be taken seriously whatsoever they can be described as a mix of Spinal Tap, 80s glam rock and Zoolander. They put a smile on everyone’s face and were introduced on stage by Jackass star Bam Margera.
The front row for Steel Panther…
Back on the main stage the classics kept coming thanks to Whitesnake.
The younger fans were all over at stage 2 though to see Papa Roach and Trivium.
The weekend wound up with rock megastars Def Leppard.
I had a great weekend. I met up with good friends, saw some fantastic bands (and some awful ones), got a tan and came home with plenty of great photos. Can’t wait for Download 2010…
Anaal Nathrakh – Band Portraits
Last week I met up with Dave & Mick who, together, make up the extreme metal band Annal Nathrakh. I had been asked by Terrorizer magazine to get some new band portraits for a feature to coincide with the release of their new album In The Constellation Of The Black Widow.
Do not listen to the music on their MySpace page if you enjoy pleasant, easy-listening music with a catchy chorus!
Another Magazine Cover
You may remember a shoot I blogged back in March with West Bromwich Albion play, Paul Robinson. It was for a magazine called Players’ Lounge which goes out to football pros in the UK. I didn’t know until the finished mag landed on my doorstep that one of the images made the front cover!!
He shoots, he scores!
Band Photoshoot Competition – Vote For The Finalists
Earlier this year I announced a competition for one unsigned band to win a photoshoot and get themselves a variety of great band portraits to help them to stand out from the crowd. We had loads of entries from all kinds of bands and solo artists all over the Midlands. The answer to the question, What was Steve’s favourite album of 2008, was “Asking For Flowers” by Kathleen Edwards.
I’ve now decided to upgrade the prize to include live shots of the winning band next time they play in the area.
I thought it’d be fun to let music fans and readers of this blog vote for the winning band from a randomly drawn selection of six bands/artists who entered the competition. So check out the bands’ MySpace pages, listen to their tracks and leave a comment after this blog post with the name of the band you think deserve the prize most. ONLY ONE VOTE PER PERSON PLEASE 
The finalists are:
The Jaayz – WEBSITE
Stunts – WEBSITE
Start The Hourglass – WEBSITE
StRANGEtIME – WEBSITE
The Amateurs – WEBSITE
Regis – WEBSITE
VOTING CLOSES MAY 31ST.
Photos from the winning band’s shoot will, of course, be featured here on the blog 
Good luck to all six bands.
Steve
In The Pit
Thanks to fellow photographer Dave Piper who grabbed this shot of me shooting Rise Against at the Academy recently…
Paul Robinson – West Bromwich Albion
Ok ok, I know I’ve been a bad blogger the past week or two. Sorry! In my defence (no pun intended with the images here) I’ve had the busiest week ever with photo shoots and the launch of Bridal Soup. In the past week I have photographed the relaunch of a hi-end salon, a footballer (see images here), a portrait session, an on-the-road report with Gojira, a great wedding and around 120 independent stores around Birmingham city centre with their owner/manager for a new promotional campaign by Retail Birmingham. I managed to almost take a full day off for Mother’s Day but now I’m back in the studio with loads of great images to go through.
On Tuesday I drove over to Stratford-Upon-Avon to meet with West Bromwich Albion defender, Paul Robinson for a portrait session for The Players’ Lounge magazine. Paul said he had a double-take when he saw the name of the photographer he was meeting but was happy it was me shooting this time, not the other Steven Gerrard!
Paul was a lovely guy (his wife had a new baby just 11 days before met him too) and we quickly got some great, relaxed portraits for the mag. He are some of my faves…
Being in Stratford, we just had to use some of the historic buildings as locations. Hopefully I’ll be doing a shoot for a bridal boutique here soon and I can’t wait!
The Lovely Miss Joss Stone
On Monday night I was lucky enough to be invited to photograph Joss Stone playing an intimate gig to around 200 people in the back room of a pub just a couple of minutes walk from our studio.
It’s always great seeing artists perform in tiny venues and Joss put on a great show. The pub was packed out and there was no pit for photographers so I had to squeeze through the crowd whilst apologizing politely in order to get the shots. Here are just a few of the lovely Miss Stone doing her thing…
Say Hello to… Isaac Gerrard :)
At roughly 2pm on Tuesday 17th February, Evelyne turned to me and suggested I might want to cancel the job I had booked for Tuesday night (photographing Judas Priest and Megadeth in Manchester) because she was starting to feel a few contractions. I suggested she take a bath and we’d play it by ear. It wasn’t long before I was calling the magazine asking if they could get a replacement photographer. By 4pm we were on our way to Good Hope Hospital!
We arrived at the hospital at ten past four. 50 minutes later at 5:02pm our baby was born!
He’s perfect. He weighed in at 6lb 8oz and we have named him Isaac.
By 10pm last night we were all home again and introducing Elliott to his little brother for the first time. We got their first meeting on video and here’s Elliott giving his new little brother a kiss
Thanks to everyone for all their messages and warm wishes. We really appreciate it. Also, a BIG thank you to Laura, Mike and Ben for looking after Elliott while we were at the hospital and to Toni who rushed over town to help out at short notice. Thanks a lot guys
Evelyne did an amazing job and we’re so happy to have a new addition to the family. We will of course, be posting more photos here soon…