48 Watt St, Newcastle
Friday November 24, 2017 :
What a massive weekend Newcastle experienced when the Supercars rolled into town. For myself, I managed to score some media access to shoot the cars, then topped it off with catching Shihad Friday night, and a pit shoot of Chisel Saturday. Three days of fast cars, loud music, beers and burgers never sounded so good.
Tonight, 48 Watt St lights up with Shihad, and I’m more than happy to have a big Friday at the start of an even bigger weekend. Opening with ‘You Again’, a track that is over 20 years old and still carries one of the must brutal guitar riffs, the band are on a mission. I plant myself front and centre with a wide angle lens, with plenty of room to move. The crowd is taking its time to warm up which surprises me. There is literally no space between me and vocalist Jon Toogood.
No need for me to rattle off the songs played, just check out the setlist above. There’s a nice helping from The General Electric and their latest FVEY, a dive back to the industrial ‘Factory’, the restrained ‘Deb’s Night Out’, and a couple of choice cuts from Pacifier.
On stage the band don’t let up. Jon climbs to the top of the speak stacks, twice, and by midway through the set, the crowd has pushed forward to the knee-high stage, dodging guitar heads and becoming quite manic, which brings me to the only issue I had with the night – fuckwit punters.
Here’s the dilemma, you and your mate go to a festival along with 10 thousand others, and you have a great time. You go hard in the mosh along with 500 others, sweaty, bruised and beer-soaked, and it’s all you talk about during the week. The next weekend, you and your mate go to a club show with 100 people, and you go just as hard as you did at the festival. This night though, you have become a fuckwit.
At the festival, everyone knows what will happen if you venture too close to the mosh, and we have the choice to get involved if we wish to. Also, as a photographer, we will have a pit in front of you so we are quite protected. In a small club though, with no pit to shoot from, and I was push onto the stage numerous time, received a head butt to the back of my head, and had beer spilt on me. Imagine my thoughts when while shooting, I see a beer venture into my sight being held above me. Imagine my thoughts of having a beer spilled over $6000 worth of camera gear, and what sort of damage that “5 kilos of steel” camera gear can do. Fuckwit.
And before you say “if you don’t like it then get out of the way”, I was the one that was at the front of the stage before Shihad came on, before anyone else decided to join me. It all comes down to respecting the space you are in and the people around you. Fuckwit.
Anyway, Shihad killed it at 48 Watt St tonight, and even though it was a big day to start my weekend, I drove back to the Central Coast looking forward to more motor racing and Cold Chisel tomorrow.
Photographer & Reviewer : Kevin Bull
SHIHAD
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BORN LION
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