Steve Hackett Concert

Steve Hackett Concert 

I have always been an `early` Genesis fan. By this I mean their first few albums when Peter Gabriel was the lead singer, and also the two following album's with Phil Collins on lead vocals. During that period of that time, the lead guitarist was Steve Hackett. After that, Steve left to follow a solo career.  I always felt that Genesis followed a more `commercial` route after Steve Hackett split from the group, and although some of the later genesis albums are O.K. I never felt that they were as good as when Steve was lead guitarist. (but that my own personal opinion) 

Since going solo, Steve Hackett has produced some fantastic music, and last week I went to see him at the Cliffs Pavilion at Southend-on-Sea. He is touring the country with his `Selling England by the Pound Revisited` tour, and this was the last but one leg of the current tour.

 I had decided to try to take a few shots during the concert, but was not sure what the Pavilions policy was for taking shots during the performance.  I had been to another concert at the same venue a year ago, and loads of people were photographing with their mobile phones. I however wanted to use my Olympus, which was a bit different. I didn`t take a camera bag along, but just put the camera body and lens in an ordinary backpack, with my coat on top of it.  As I didn`t look like a photographer, none of the officials challenged me, so I just took my seat and enjoyed the gig. Fortunately, my seat was up in the balcony seating, a few rows from the back, and towards the middle of the row. From this position, I could photograph looking down onto the stage, which gave me a great viewpoint.

 I waited until well into the first half before I attempted to take any shots. A number of people were taking shots with their mobile phones, but I had took my OMD-EM1 MkII and the 40-150 F2.8 Pro lens. I was a bit nervous about spoiling other peoples enjoyment of the concert, so I asked the people either side of me if they objected to me taking a few shots. Neither of them had a problem with it. I did set the shutter onto totally silent, but the music was so load, they would not have heard it even if I hadn`t !

I only photographed for quite short bursts, and once I had taken half a dozen or so images, I put the camera down for 5 minutes or so, before taking a few more images. This was partly because I didn`t want to annoy people around me watching the gig, and also because I was slightly concerned that the officials would object if they saw me continually taking photos, but fortunately no one challenged me.  

I had the Olympus set on Aperture Priority, and set the ISO at 1600, shooting wide open at F2.8 throughout. Because the lighting was changing continuously, the shutter speed varied between 1/125th sec to 1/1250sec. I just watched the histogram in the viewfinder to check I was getting correctly exposed images.  The advantage of seeing the exposure in `real time` on the Olympus was a big advantage over a normal DSLR. The only problem is that high ISO`s can lead to very `noisy` images with Micro Four Thirds`, but I was quite pleased with the results at ISO1600.

The line up of musicians he has on the tour are brilliant. They are : Steve Hackett -Lead Guitar and Vocals, Nad Sylan-Vocals,  Roger King -Keyboards,  Rob Townsend- Sax, Flute, Percussion & Keys, Vocals,  Johnas Reingold - Bass Guitar,12 String and Vocals, Craig Brundell -Drums and Vocals.

The lighting set up was incredible, as I hope some of the photos will show.

The one and only - Steve Hackett