2022-07-16 Forever Young - Palmerstown House, Naas

After 30 months of a pandemic, I finally got COVID, 11 days before Forever Young Festival, where I was due to shoot! So, after COVID kicked my ass, I had to isolate for another few days, my first day of freedom being the first full day of the the festival!

Should I have went? In hindsight, probably not. I was no longer infectious, so that wasn't an issue, but I was drained, had no energy and hadn't eaten properly in 10 days. Add on to that the heatwave Ireland was experiencing and I think we can all agree, it was stupid of me to go.

In my (albeit weak) defence, it was the first time I'd got a Media Pass for that festival and I didn't want to run the risk of not getting another. Plus the lineup was superb! Artists such as Nik Kershaw, the Undertones, Tiffany, Bananarama, Paul Young, Nick Heyward and many, many more were set to play, it was going to be a trues 80s music feast!

Anyway...

There were so many highlights from the weekend, a most of the performers were absolute legends, making plenty of time for photographs and with fans, it was brilliant to see. The crowd were electric, intent on partying and having a good time. The weather was scorching, a rarity for an Irish festival.

My own personal highlight? I got to meet Tiffany, I was instantly turned into a 15 year old schoolboy again!

Some folk might look at festivals like this and wonder why you'd go. Well it's simple. Everyone knows the songs, everyone is there just to have a good time and there are no idiots looking for trouble. It's all just about having fun.

Would I do it again? Damn right I would, I loved the weekend!

Enough of the talk, lets have a look at some of the photos!

Denise from Five Star

Buster Bloodvessel from Bad Manners

Bananarama

The Blow Monkeys

Chesney Hawkes

Heather Small

Holly Johnson

Johnny Hates Jazz

Leslie Dowdall of In Tua Nua

Johnny Hates Jazz

Limahl

Nick Heyward

Nik Kershaw

Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark

Paul Young

Tiffany

Real Thing

Carol Decker of T'pau

Mark Shaw of Then Jerico

Tony Hadley of Spandau Ballet

The Undertones

Wendy James of Transvision Vamp

2022-03-26 Buskers on Grafton Street, Dublin

I took a walk around Dublin today, thought I'd check out the buskers on Grafton Street. There's a fine history of busking in Dublin, acts like Hothouse Flowers , The Frames , Rodrigo y Gabriela , Damien Rice , Paddy Casey , Kodaline and a host of others all cut their teeth on and around Grafton Street. It stands to reason that some of those busking today will be successful in the future! So, who did I get to see today? Well, check out the photos below: Zoe Clarke Allie Sherlock Paul Jenkinson

Bye Bye Spotify...

I ditched Spotify Premium this weekend. Why? Well, I read an interview with Daniel Ek , the CEO of Spotify, and I profoundly disagreed with what he said and his attitude towards musicians in the interview. So I said 'F*ck it', and closed my premium account. I still do have a free account* as many bands choose Spotify to release their music, so I'll keep it for that reason. What now though? Well, I'd created a large library of music on my home server over the last 20 years or so. Every time I bought a CD, it got ripped to the server. Every time I bought digital music from Bandcamp , Google or 7 Digital , they too got stored on the server, and that was fine for home use, it worked well. But now I'd dumped Spotify, what could I do, how could I access my music outside the house? I'd played around with software called Plex a few years back, but had no use for it. I ended up doing nothing with Plex, but for this project, I decided to revisit it. I knew that i

Pete Kavanagh - Mercy Video Shoot

I've been asked a few times if I'd be interested in shooting a music video. Each time I said no because, well, I'd no idea what to do. I'm not technical behind a camera. I know the look I want, I take my photos and, that's it. I honestly don't know what I'm doing, it just works for me, sometimes (they're the photos you see!). I've known Pete Kavanagh a long time. We both grew up in the same Kildare town and know many of the same folk. Over the last few years we became friends through music. He played, I listened and or photographed. So, when he asked me if I'd shoot his video for 'Mercy', I said yes, albeit a hesitant yes, one filled with self doubt! Day one of shooting came around all too quickly for me. I'd looked in to shooting video, read up a bit on how to do it on my camera, what settings to change and so on, just so I wouldn't look clueless on set! I charged all the batteries and lights, packed all the gear away an

IrishMJ

Search This Blog