Yuck with support from Unknown Mortal Orchestra – Biltmore Cabaret, Vancouver – 23rd July 2011

Sometimes in life you make unfortunate decisions.
Tonight I’d made 2…
1) I left my 50mm 1.4 lens at home
2) I left my speedlite at home

The lesson I learned? Just because a venue has a good lighting system, it doesn’t mean that the lighting that night will be ideal for photography. Always turn up prepared for the worst.

Tonight’s support act Unknown Mortal Orchestra…

…left myself and my fellow photographers at the venue bemused by playing with no lighting at all. Just the band on a dark stage. It became apparent that I had to think on my feet in order to get anything without my speedlite in tow. The solution? Catch other people’s bursts of flash during long exposures…and a little panning and zooming to catch multiple bursts of flash.

I’m not sure how to describe what these guys play…at times I thought they sounded like the Stone Roses stuck in a 60s time warp. Whatever it was they sounded like, I thought it was pretty cool (and better live than on record).

Tonight’s headliners – Yuck – from the UK sound like a little piece of the 90s, mixing grunge and shoegaze influences.

Luckily for me, there was some light to work with, perfect for a set of black and white images which I think fits in nicely with the band’s sound.




A few more images of Yuck can be seen below.