It really has been a hectic couple of months, have shot or attended a number of Festivals in July/August/September so far and one more to on the books this coming weekend. A little over a week ago it was HRH Sleaze in Sheffield, another cracking weekend with some great sets from old and new bands alike, a cracking atmosphere and again a really good variety of styles.
It’s been difficult to keep up with the writing as my head’s been in a bit of a whole lately, nothing picking it up yet either, the little guy picking up a nasty bug and trying to keep my mother on track certainly hasn’t made things any easier, and the madness of work really pushes you to the edge. But hey getting away for some music is great, really helps to keep you sane.
Just about got everything tidied up from Ramblin’ Man Fair, some writing to do from Sleaze and next up we’ve got Uprising 4 in Leicester, first time in that City, and in interesting Heavy lineup with the likes of Napalm Death, Acid Reign, Godthrymm all taking to the stage alongside a number of up and coming local bands, should be really interesting.
After that still have some trips this year for gigs, not sure I’ll try and shoot any of them, but still will be good breaks away. Especially looking forward to hitting Nottingham for a couple of days in December to catch AlterBridge/Shinedown/Sevendust one night, followed by Dan Reed Network/FM/Gun the next……that will be a great weekend and will hopefully be able to catch up with some friends along the way.
This has been a very mixed bag of a year, but have thankfully been able to shoot a lot of bands in different places, including some at home, most recently at the always excellent Unleashed Festival in Dublin. Keep an eye out for Fornoth, those lads have something that just might elevate them to something special.
On the health side, so far touch wood another year Fit free, so continuing to manage my Epilepsy even though I think over time the medication is making me more and more lethargic, alongside that sleep patterns have been really bad recently, so will hopefully not tax the body too much at Uprising. Mentally, well I see more and more friends stuggle and just think we are all going through this stuff now, added stresses of everything, seem much less than what our parents may have had to deal with, but the immediacy of life now has brought with it a whole new raft of problems.
If you have time and like music go check out my Ramblin’ Man Fair reviews, Day 1 & 2 are up there at the moment on the Reviews page, just click on the link and Day 3 as soon as it’s published. Photo Galleries for everything will continue to be posted when I can and will hopefully get back to posting a couple of Blog posts here and there again.
Sadly my trusty, and also my standard for concerts, Sigma 24-70mm lens has died, happened at the most inappropriate moment of course just before travelling to HHR Sleaze, so will be on the lookout for a replacement, but managed to get through the Sleaze Festival with a 35mm f2 Canon prime lens, so hopefully it will also do the job at Uprising, but would really prefer to be bringing something a little wider, so may try and grab a second hand 18-35mm lens somewhere, we will see, time is short. Will hopefully get a few days away in between everything else and see some nice scenery 😉 with a bit of luck.