Last night saw Blink 182 frontman, Tom DeLonge, bringing his other band, Angels & Airwaves to Birmingham to play for a packed room at the O2 Academy.

I was there to shoot the gig for Rock Sound magazine. It was tricky to shoot, lots of backlight, but I got a few keepers, partly due to some sneaky flash

On Friday evening Evelyne & I met up with friends at a fantastic Latin American restaurant in town called Las Iguanas. Highly recommended if you’re ever in Birmingham.

After a great meal we walked around the corner to The O2 Academy where Band Of Horses were about to headline the main room.

Now some of you will know Band Of Horses. Many of you won’t. If you missed my post about my favourite albums of 2010, CLICK HERE and you’ll know I LOVE them. So I was, not only looking forward to seeing them live for the first time, but also photographing them for Birmingham Live!

There were quite a few photographers there and 80% of them were friends of mine It’s been interesting to see other people’s shots from the same gig. And here are a few of my own..

If you haven’t heard the band at all, I suggest you start with The Funeral…

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….

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..

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…

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!

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!

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