Athens trip to see Bad Religion and Faith No More - again!

After returning to London Heathrow airport from Bilbao via Madrid, I literally only just made it onto my flight to Athens, having had a delayed flight from Madrid. It was well worth the rush and arriving in Athens at 3.30am Greece time! I was so exhausted, but after arriving at my hotel at around 5.00am, I went to bed for a few hours, then got up and lay in the sunshine by the rooftop pool at the very nice Metropolitan Hotel. I made it into a mini holiday, which was the idea. Get some sun and rock 'n' roll in the evening.
Luckily, the venue for the one day Ejekt Festival was changed from the Olympic Fencing Stadium to The Olympic Tae Kwon Do arena which was just 15 minutes walk from my hotel.

This time it was too short notice for me to get a photo pass for the show, as I only decided to go to Athens a couple of weeks before and booked the flights and hotel package before I even knew whether I could get on the guest list, but I was all sorted out by the Ejekt press man and crew, so thank you to them I was still allowed to bring my camera into the venue and take some photos from at the front of the barrier without getting kicked by moshers!

Bad Religion were the first band I saw when I arrived, celebrating their 30th anniversary, the Californian punk icons were as energetic as always and performed an ultimate Bad Religion greatest hits setlist. They played about 30 songs (but of course, most of their songs are very short anyway), opening with Do What You Want and saving most of the best for last with American Jesus and finishing with Sorrow. I couldn't get many good shots of them, as Greg always moves around so much anyway. Faith No More opened with Midnight Cowboy, which I was glad about because in Bilbao it was Reunited. The setlist was similar to Bilbao BBK Live, but of course like with any Faith No More performance it was mixed around again and there were some differences and a surprise double encore with As The Worm Turns and then Prisina, when Mike did the Greek thing and smashed up plates (an old Greek tradition usually practised at large weddings and wealthy family dinner parties). With the usual Patton stage mischief and the pleasure of hearing Pristina being sung again, it was probably even more enjoyable than their Bilbao set.

Mike Patton holding one of the plates he smashed onto the stage floor at the end of the Athens Ejekt Festival concert.







Greg Graffin of Bad Religion, with Jay Bentley in the background. Below: Bad Religion onstage at Ejekt in Athens


Me with Mike Patton the morning after the Ejekt concert as everyone was leaving our hotel for the airport. The same thing happened in Adelaide after Soundwave festival! Good luck timing!

Bilbao BBK Live Festival

Overseas festival time yet again and this July I chose to go to Spain for the BBK Live festival in Bilbao. Mainly because not only because Bilbao is such a lovely Spannish city on the North coast of Spain in the Basque country, but because this year's festival boasted a very impressive line-up of bands. Below are some of my favourite photos of the bands I watched, but you will be able to view a lot more here soon:

www.virtualfestivals.com

www.rockmidgets.com

Mike Patton performs Laborintus II in Amsterdam

On June 18th, I was lucky enough to see Mike Patton perform a unique special performance in Amsterdam of Italian composer Luciano Berio's Laborintus II, followed by an avant garde jazz improvisation second half of the concert. Full review of the whole show with photos can be seen here:

www.rockmidgets.com

Download festival

Download 2010 was good, but not as good as 2009, mainly being because of all the excitement about Faith No More reuniting and performing at Download 2009 was what made it so special for me and many others who I know who went. Plus the weather was much nicer last year!
This year we were lucky with the sun and cloud and no rain until it suddenly decided to change on the Sunday afternoon while I was watching The Damned Things on the second stage and the rain came. With soaking wet jeans and muddy feet (I wore flip-flops, so walking bare foot in the mud was better as they kept getting stuck!) I still stuck it out as I couldn't possibly miss Aerosmith, who I'd been looking forward to seeing all weekend.
Slightly disappointing line-up compared to 2009, but my highlights were still all the bands I'd planned to watch and they were all brilliant. Bullet For My Valentine proved they deserved the headline slot of the second stage Friday night and were fantastic. My overall favourite of the three days being an amazing Friday night show from ACDC, who had a special customized stage set up by a German crew who happened to be staying in the hotel I stayed in and they told me that it was going to be spectacular and it certainly was. 30 Seconds To Mars were awesome as always, Jared with a blonde mohawk dyed pink at the top! I watched all of their set, then ran towards the main stage to catch the rest of Rage Against The Machine.
Of course, they finished with their 2009 UK Christmas No. 1 Killing in the Name.
Sunday was supposed to be the best day for me, but when the rain came it wasn't pleasant and a lot of people left the site, but despite the mud and being wet, cold and hungry, I stayed on and enjoyed Motorhead, featuring a guest performance with Slash, Stone Temple Pilots and the amazing Aerosmith who rounded off the weekend with two of my favourite hits by them, Dream On and Walk This Way. Everyone was saying that they were a bit disappointed that they didn't do Dude Looks Like a Lady, but after almost 40 years together, Steve Tyler and the gang still put on a great show.

The giant bell which was part of ACDC's special unique stage set.
Above: The fireworks display after ACDC's performance was awesome. Below: ACDC frontman Brian Johnson


Jared Leto performing onstage on Saturday June 12th, 2010. Below: Jared and Shannon Leto in the Kerrang! signing tent.


Rage Against The Machine on the main stage on Saturday June 12th, 2010.

New items for sale in my online shops

Lots of new jewellery designs on sale in my online stores now. On the main store on Etsy and on eBay and eBid.net. Details for all online stores can be found in the main store.








To buy, go to:

www.toxicglamour.etsy.com

Any currency accepted, but prices are in US dollars. Free shipping to any UK address.

As I am still paying off debts from having such a great time in Australia and saving money for the Summer festivals, there will be no more new concert photos or reviews for a while.

I have plans to attend several festivals this Summer, as well as the usual UK events like Download, Sonisphere and Reading, I will be at the BBK Live festival in Bilbao, Spain and undecided about other events as it all depends on whether I can even afford to go anywhere else. More details closer to the dates.

Photos from Australia Faith No More shows all online ready to view

All my photos from the Soundwave festival dates in Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide are now up in my MySpace galleries, along with the live shots from the Faith No More sideshows at the Melbourne Festival Hall on February 24th and 25th. The reviews will be on Rock Midgets soon, plus the best photos I took. There are so many photos that it's impossible to include them all on Rock Midgets, so I've put them all onto MySpace anyway.

Mike Patton at Melbourne Festival Hall, February 24th, 2010 BELOW: Roddy Bottum at Melbourne Festival Hall

Jon Hudson at Melbourne Festival Hall, February 25th 2010.

ABOVE AND BELOW: Mike Patton at Melbourne Festival Hall, February 25th, 2010.


I managed to get photos with all the members of Faith No More as we left the hotel for Adelaide airport the day after the Soundwave festival at Adelaide Bonython Park. They were flying to Perth for the final date of the festival tour and I was flying back to Sydney to get a flight back to London the day after. It was a very windy afternoon, that's why my hair is all over the place in the photos!



Managed to have a chance meeting with Stefan Olsdal and Steve Forrest from Placebo, same afternoon we all left for Adelaide airport. I didn't see Placebo singer Brian Molko around at all throughout the whole trip. Steve is such a great replacement for their former drummer Steve Hewitt. They made the right decision, nice guy and a superb drummer. So glad this band are still around after 15 years, I got some fantastic shots of them at Sydney and Adelaide Soundwave festivals. Melbourne I was sticking around Stage 3 most of the day to get photos of different bands, so it was very varied. There were so many acts I am a fan of, but couldn't get to watch everyone.

ABOVE: Me with Davey Havok of AFI in Adelaide. I wish I had got a full length body shot of him that afternoon, he was wearing these tight magenta colour jeans and they looked so quirky and great on him and the colour went well with his arm tattoos! BELOW: Toasted, blistered, swollen feet was the result of walking around in the intense heat at Sydney and Melbourne Soundwave. I wore soft hotel slippers to walk around at Adelaide Soundwave and they started to make a recovery! The pain was worth it, though! I had to take a ibuprofen tablets every few hours so I could walk without limping and cringing. European sun is nowhere near as hot as the Australian sun. You can't even buy any suntan lotions that are lower than Factor 30, it's that strong.