Andrew Kendall – Blog Archive

Pre-Christmas pictures of a rather grubby looking Graham Coxon at the Guilded Musical of Sin.

Merry Christmas everyone. I hope you all have a wonderful day!

After an awful lot of deliberation I have made a decision regarding the photographs from Saturday night. I always knew I should make them public but the overwhelming reaction from everyone’s comments just confirmed this. My first instinct was just to upload them straight to my journal and on Sunday night I very nearly did just that. The only things that stopped me are the relatively limited readership of my journal and my concern about taking on the role of being solely responsible for making them available. At the end of the day Mean Fiddler is a very influential company and with the Astoria’s history and its future in jeopardy, I can’t really afford to incur the wrath of such a large organisation.

What is happening to the photographs? When I woke up Monday morning my inbox was full of enquiries from various agencies and publications about the pictures. Despite all the interest my final decision was for the NME to print them. I know some of you may not agree with my choice, but the NME is the biggest music newspaper in the UK and thus has the most relevant audience for the pictures. What’s more, on a personal level they have always been very supportive of me, helping me get to shows and giving me access that I would not normally have had, so for all their help I feel I have some loyalty to them. Finally, and perhaps more importantly they have assured me that I would be fully protected by IPC Media if any legal action were to be taken.

Several of the people who were attacked have emailed and asked if the pictures could be used as evidence. I hope this goes without saying, yes, of course they may. I have already burnt a few CDs and have them ready to hand to police as soon as they are requested.

So now I guess we just have to wait for a little while until the pictures are made public. I certainly think it will be interesting to see what the full consequences of Saturday night’s no-show, rioting and the security guards heavy handedness will be.

So, the Astoria. Several of my friends say that they saw Peter arrive at the venue – whether that is true or not I don’t know. Whatever happened, Baby shambles didn’t play and after two hours of waiting, the curtains were lowered on to the stage and an announcement was made. Seconds later what could best be described as a riot began to take place. The curtains were torn down, the drum kit was smashed and essentially the entire contents of the stage were destroyed. As the “rioting” progressed, the security became more and more aggressive, they drove the kids from the stage and forced them back to the other side of the barrier. Then things started to get really violent, a security guard tore electric cabling from the stage to form a whip, leapt over the barriers and proceeded to lash at the kids. People around me were crying as the security guard caught one of the teenagers who was trying to run away and beat him as he knelt on the floor. The whole spectacle was horrific and left everyone who saw it in a state of utter shock. Now I’m left debating what I should do with the pictures, they are incredibly graphic and I get the feeling that they have the potential to cause an awful lot of trouble.

Photographs from Bloc Party’s Christmas show at Heaven.

A few photos from last night. I’m planning to get some sleep and then sort through the rest, so take a look back tomorrow for more pics of the rest of the show.

Photos from last nights low-key Ash gig at Frog. Although the band only played for half an hour the show was excellent, for me it couldn’t have been much better, both the band and the crowd really seemed to get into what was really a condensed greatest hits set. After the gig I sat backstage and chatted with who also took a few pictures of myself and Tim as well as generously donating a large bottle of whiskey from the rider to me

Photos of The Rocks at Infinity.

Ha, so some photographer I turn out to be. After not making it to the Futureheads instead I go see watch Special Needs, and whilst the most dramatic onstage moment in their history unfurls I just stand there open mouthed and don’t even take a single picture. Tonight was disturbing, for anyone who has been around Zac in the last few months it is obvious that his drink problem is out of hand. Ever since I met him a year ago his drinking has been an issue, but recently it has become increasingly more evident. Tonight when myself and wander upstairs to find Zachery crying we know the night is not going to go well, but as he steps on to the stage dressed in a Batman outfit there is something laughable but tragic about the whole affair, the band try to hold it together, but at the end of the day their lead singer can barely sing, and as Zac decides to change his clothes on stage you can see the anger reaching boiling point in Andrew Needs eyes. The next song last barely a minute, Andrew singing into Zac’s face and before you know it Zac lashes out and punches Andrew in the face, the gig descends into chaos as the band members roll around on the floor, you can see from the looks of most of the people in the place the disappointment and frustration of what is going on. Zac leaves the stage nearly in tears, apologising to everyone around, and well is that it? Special Needs. Afterwards The Rocks play, the usual Rocks set, upbeat a good show, but at the end of the night all I hear is everyone talking about Special Needs, I just hope that Zac can sort himself out, and as I make my way from Infinity I’m left with the feeling that everyone else in the venue feels the same.

After staying up most of Thursday night sorting Pete’s laptop, I awoke Friday, checked my mail and saw that I had a quick photo shoot with Simon Pegg of ‘Shaun Of The Dead’ fame for the NME Christmas issue. I headed for the shoot, took the pictures I needed and then made my way back to Camden for Baby shambles at the Barfly. The show was good, there was an awful lot of stage diving from both the crowd and the QoN and in the end, a stage invasion of sorts.

Saturday was mostly spent sorting and editing pictures, I have a huge amount from the last few weeks still to upload, so if there is something you are waiting for don’t fear, it should be online in the next few days.

Sunday was the ‘XFM Winter Winderland’. I heard that the Shambles weren’t playing so I arrived there a bit later, thus missing the whole Pete / Shambles not being allowed on stage fiasco. On the way there I got a text from Drew Shambles asking if I was coming out, he said they were playing Nambucca but I couldn’t make it in time as I had to shoot Kasabian and Razorlight for NME. He did however say that there was another show at 11:45 at infinity so I decided I would try and make my way to that instead. The XFM gig was strange, I got a weird vibe from most of the crowd and it seemed that everyone who took to the stage felt it was mandatory to indulge in some form of ‘crack related humour‘. I took some pictures of Tim Wheeler, Kasabian and Razorlight and whilst in the photo pit for Tim Wheeler had the pleasure of meeting for the first time. After Razorlight finished I made my way to Infinity with and Guy. Infinity was relatively empty but the Shambles sounded great and after the show Pete headed down stairs and played another acoustic set. Everyone sat around, requested songs and sang along, it felt just like the old Albion rooms gigs and for me was definitely the high point of the day. At the end of the acoustic set Infinity’s security started chucking everyone out from the venue, the last thing I saw before I made my way home was a huge mob of fans surrounding the Peter’s van.