The Almond Croissant Diaries: Maroon 5 @ Scala, Kings Cross
Yesterday, Maroon 5 performed live on Radio 2 in front of hundreds of lucky listeners who had won tickets to the event which took place at Scala, Kings Cross.
The “In Concert” team seemed quite at home set up in the Glass Bar of the Scala overlooing the stage. Even though I had arrived ready for the soundcheck, I was asked not to take photos of the band. It was shame but at least it meant I could stand back and listen and spend time finding my way around the labyrinth-like venue!
During the live show, Jo Whiley interviewed the fabulous Thea Gilmore and we were treated to acoustic versions of a couple of her songs. Even though Thea was fantastic, the lighting in the Glass Bar was not and I found myself testing my new camera to its absolute limits trying to get any halfway decent photos.
It was made more complicated when Adam and Jesse from Maroon 5 came up to the bar as they managed to position themselves with their backs to me so that they could look out over the audience (although the whoops and cheers that were reaching us from the fans downstairs were very amusing)!
There then followed a period of utter confusion! I had originally been told that I wasn’t allowed to get anywhere near the stage to take photos as the photo pit was out of bounds. However, after managing to squeeze into a tiny space on the balcony in order to take some shots, I noticed that there wasn’t just one press photographer in the pit but TWO! I took my chance and rushed down to check with the bouncers at the side of stage whether I was allowed in to take some shots and, luckily for me, I was granted access for songs two and three.
Most of my shots ended up being of frontman Adam Levine primarily because I didn’t want to miss anything that he did! He was running around the stage constantly and would often come and stand right in front of me providing perfect shooting opportunities!
I am so glad that I managed to get in the pit, even though it was for such a short stretch of time. I don’t really know what the initial issue was with me getting to the front of stage to take photos, especially as I was really struggling getting any other decent shots! Oh well, it all turned out ok in the end.
Finally, you may notice that my photographs are now watermarked. It wasn’t something that I really thought was required. I reasoned that by making the photos relatively small, people wouldn’t bother lifting them. However, I have recently started to see my photos popping up on various websites. I don’t have a huge issue with this, its actually quite nice to see that people think my photos are worthy of reposting! What I do have a problem with, however, is that the photos are often reposted with absolutely no reference to the source. So I decided watermarking was the easiest way to get around this. I would ask though that if anyone would like to post my photos anywhere, could you just drop me a comment to let me know where the photos are going to end up.
