The very same evening I was also at The Face Bar at the invitation of Officer Kicks so I had to pretty much sprint across town to do both.

Then Brighton took over BBC Introducing at The Oakford Social club for the night with Ice Black Birds:

And Jumping Ships both putting in an appearance:

Next on the Agenda was Malefice:

at SUB89 supported by Primitae:

Then came a Club Velocity night at Plug N Play – kicked off by Off The Radar:

Followed by Sixty Watt Bayonets:

Then Vienna Ditto:

My awesome mates the Midimidis:

And headlining that night was Aluminum Babe:

My next adventure was back at SUB89 again to shoot one of my favourite heavy bands Breed 77:

They were supported by OMT (Our Malevolent Tyranny)

And also Symphony Cult:

So next on the rollercoaster of November was Hadouken – a big band in a little venue – but The Oakford Social Club welcomed them with sweaty arms wide open!

Abley supported by Soft Toy Emergency:

BBC Introducing that week was Headlined by Chew LiPs:

Supported by Islington Boys Club:

and local boys The Wookies:

The highlight of this week was back at SUB89 for The Buzzcocks on Wednesday

They had support from Newport band Strawberry Blondes

And also South Wales based Town:

Gutted by Hello Wembleys demise, what a damn shame!

So if you like these pics – see the originals at www.flickr.com/photos/adamreading

So here is my photographic evidence of a great couple of nights had by all.

OK Tokyo

Bad Robots

Kicks

60 Watt Bayonets

Underground Heroes

The Vice

The Tricoteurs

Neils Children

Somebodies Mind

Spectators & Faces

Club J12

Here’s BBC Berkshire’s main home page during some of last week – with The Noyze featuring from the 100% Reading gig.

I had been looking forward to seeing the 6NS boys play again for ages, and they didn’t let me down.

6NS were on top form and the place was rammed to the gunnels, lots of familiar band faces out to support the scene as usual. Full Force Gales started with their first ever gig (as full force – you’ll recognise all the members as part of Heartware Process – lol.)

Six Nation State

Sixty Watt Bayonets

Full Force Gales

xSpectating

My best friend and my Dad have both been diagnosed with cancer in the last few weeks, and I’m doing my best to stay positive for both of them. So I would ask if any of you have had the benefit of my photos for free and enjoyed them, consider making a donation to Marie Curie cancer through my mate Steve White who’s running the London Marathon to support them. It’s easy to hear that one in three if us will get it and not realise that means us!

So now, on to the fun stuff….

Friday night I was invited to my first gig at Reading’s Rising Sun Arts Centre, I went to see the midimidi’s who I really love and for a first look at 60 Watt Bayonets who are going to be Reading’s Next Big Thing I hope. The Centre is run on love and friendship and lots of volunteers – so support it and go see bands there!

Midimidis

60 Watt Bayonets

Spectators

A great time was had by all, many reportedly ending up at the After Dark for afters – lol.

So on to Saturday night – probably my favourite night’s photography since I took up this crazy hobby! I was so lucky to get a photo pass to the Hoosiers gig at Carling Academy Oxford, and luckier still that the line up was so damn brilliant. The Hoosiers excelled themselves – its my 3rd time seeing them live and they go from strength to strength. It’s a shame that so few people realise that Irwin Sparkes is a local Reading boy, we should all be proud of his achievment!

The Script are a true Irish rock band – with soul and class, I can’t wait to see them headline!

I really liked I AM FINN until my fiancee wouldn’t stop going on about how fit the singer was, and how she and her friend were hoping for his trousers to fall down. Apparantly he has sexy pelvic bones, and he looks like a young Axl Rose!

Let’s not forget those who made the effort to dress up for The Hoosiers!

And lastly onto Sundays marathon day taking promo shots for Whitley band Vivacity. There’s been a lot of argument about how their name is pronounced – but I can tell you from the Horse’s Mouth its (viv acity) like audacity NOT Viva City!!!!

So, I finally got do my my photo shoot with the Vivacity boys, what a brilliant day!

I’d been pretty nervous leading up to Sunday, lots on my mind last week, and Gigs Friday and Saturday night too. This was going to be my first real attempt to take band pics away from my comfort zone, the “live gig”. I prepared by buying myself a little laptop to check out the pics as we went along – I couldn’t bear the idea of getting home and finding no useable shots after waiting 6 weeks to get time with the boys. I also tried to plan out locations and lots of ideas to try too.

Finding out that most of the roads around Reading would be closed due to the half marathon made life a little harder too – but we managed to drive around and miss all the road blocks by a hair’s breadth.

Once we’d parked in the Town centre, everything seemed to go smoothly, taking shots in 6 or 7 different locations, and ending up at the good old Oakford Social Club for the last shots and a chance to upload the 600 odd shots ready to review.

It was really good reviewing and rating the pics with Vivacity there and then, normally after a gig I spend 3 to 4 hours cutting down the shots to the most usable to upload, so having the 3 boys do that for me took a lot of the pressure off – and was also surprising because I think they picked shots i would have binned and visa versa in some cases. In the end we ended up with 33 top shots and about 80 they’d rated as 4*. So I’m happy!

This is my favourite shot from the Scratchy Apache Sunday Social at the Oakford last weekend. I feel responsible for showing how the spectators view the bands, because they see them differently than I. Here’s me running about, one eye shut, in your face, not even able to listen to the music you produce as I’m concentrating to hard on “the shot”. So here are the people you play for, intent, quiet, listening, laughing even talking sometimes, but always enthralled.

And you – the singer songwriter, technical wiz, rambling and headining groups – here you are in all your glory.

Megan Henwood

Dexter’s Friends

The Midnight Rambler

The Wookies

As always these are the teasers, more fine shots can be found of these beautiful people on my Flickr site www.flickr.com/photos/adamreading

This weekend should be interesting – Sid’s Velocity gig on Friday – at Rising Sun Arts Centre with Midimidis and 60 Watt Bayonet. The Hoosiers on Saturday night, and I hope Vivacity for a promo shoot on Sunday, Marathon permitting. So here’s to an interesting set of shots!

What I am referring to is, when the bands that are playing join in and dance and have fun at the front during the other sets – so that every band has an audience and they’re all enjoying each others music. Such a night was Velocity’s Plug N Play outing on Saturday just gone. Most noticable was the rapport and goodwill between Diamond Lines and The Noyze as you will see from the Spectator shots.

This caused a really good night to turn into one of the best Reading nights out in ages – and I loved every minute!

Joey Ultra started the night with a bang – literally as they broke their drum pedal halfway through their set. Its the first time I’d seen them, and thought they started the night well, getting everybody warmed up for Diamond Lines.

There’s not much I can say about these Thug Rockers I haven’t said before, I love what they do, how they sound, how Bailey performs and carrys the stage – and I think that they compliment The Noyze superbly.

The Kicks are a polished rock band, very tight and together – and they are extremely photogenic for which I thank them!

I love The Noyze as much as I do Diamond Lines – and I really love the fact that Ross was right in the thick of it during DL’s set. To be honest I’m just counting the days til they go bigtime and I’m buying their CD in HMV.

I have exhausted my wordage for today – so here come the pictures!

The Noyze

The Kicks

Diamond Lines

Joey Ultra

Spectators

Diamond Lines I’ve seen before and really like their musical style – its somewhere between the Jam and The Streets – but nothing like either. You’ll have to go see them for yourselves.

Anyway enough guff from me, I’m a photographer not a music Critic!

Check out my website:

Midimidis

Diamond Lines