It's Only Rock'n'Roll, but I Like It

I like it a lot. Last spring I was asked to photograph the final night of a Battle of the Bands competition at the International School Manila. In hindsight, I'm unsure exactly what I was expecting, but the evening was memorable for the performances and remarkable for the skill of the musicians. 

In my day, Battle of the Bands meant thrashing around trying to sound good, being a rebel and making a lot of noise.

It was either denim and leather or hairspray and bleached highlights. Some kids could play a bit, some could hold a tune, but rarely for long and they were never in the same band!

This lot however were, to a person, amazing. The range of skills, the depth of talent, and the coherhance of the bands was a jaw dropping. 

These are talented young people who obviously work closely together. It didn't matter if they were older or younger, they were all of a semi-professional standard. They didn't need to be rebellious or try to force anything - they dressed up, stood up and rocked out. 

A few performers stood out, of course, perhaps confidence or affinity with the material made the difference. 

What's interesting to me is that when I started editing the show I noticed that one band in particular had a disproportionate amount of photographs taken of it, and one person in particular.

This is interesting because this person was involved with many performances and his band won the competition's biggest prize. 

The band, United States of Hysteria, was a league apart. The difference between amauter and professional is more than about the quality of voice or musicianship. You need those, of course, But you also need to own it.

USH owned not only the stage but the entire gig. They took the crowd, the judges and the evening into their hands and created their experience. It was a professional show. There was arrogance, skill, uniqueness - wow, that band could play.  

I used to photography new bands many years ago - more than I get to now, for sure, and one or two of them stood out as having that something, that invisible invincible stagecraft that said, its only rock'n'roll, but I am it.  Bands such Razorlight and Franz Ferdinand on their first album tours come to mind. 

For a high school battle of the bands, that was good company to find yourself in. Not that they probably know who Razorlight or Franz Ferdinand are today. Still, I saw, I remembered and I got to photograph this lot under the night sky of Manila and it was brilliant.

Life on Stage

Stepping out onto a stage in front of hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of people takes courage. Imagine those final moments backstage, the focusing of the mind, channeling the anxiety, feeling it transform into an edgy kind of power. That last deep inhale of breath, and that final, come first, step out of the shadows and into the spotlight. Then you are, to all intense and purposes, walking out onto the edge of the world. This journal entry is a little self indulgent because the images are black and white. Performances are color and that's great, my clients want and get those, but there's something special to me about stripping away the color of the performance to isolate the focus of the performer. 

The performer's journey has in all likeliness taken years to arrive at this point we are witnessing. Parents take their little ones to a dance class, someone insists their child take up a musical instrument because it's good for them, kids sign up for a drama or theatre class to better express themselves: all these events happened years before the curtain goes up. If the child likes the class, then the dreams will grow until, laying in bed at night, waiting for sleep, dreams spring across the twilight. Dancers on invisible currents, musicians at one with instrument and crowd, actors inhabiting other people's souls. And if they're lucky, it carries over into reality for all time.

What is the reason why we enjoy live performances so much? Do we feel the pressure, the taste the closeness of failure, do we share the relief at the end? I marvel at the skill, the control, the ability to do such a thing, the courage.

 As a performer, there is always the dream of the breakthrough. If fame and fortune is what you're after, then the dream drives you onwards and you never know, you never know who is watching, or what is waiting for you at the next performance, because just maybe it is the bigtime. Are we watching history germinating, stars born and immortality beckoning? That's when we stand an applaud, jump and scream. They did it! Bravo! We stand and cheer - perhaps glad that we did not have to endure the months and years of sacrifice and training to put ourselves on the line like that - but most of all, it is for the pure joy at sharing such a human experience.

That's when we stand an applaud, jump and scream. They did it! Bravo! We stand and cheer - perhaps glad that we did not have to endure the months and years of sacrifice and training to put ourselves on the line like that - but most of all, it is for the pure joy at sharing such a human experience.

There are more photos to check out on the website gallery page here.

"Always go a little further into the water than you feel you're capable of being in, go a little out of your depth, and when you don't feel that your feet are quite touching the bottom, you're just about in the right place to do something exciting." - David Bowie