Femke shoots the Black Lips at Richards on Richards

Photos by Femke van Delft

(I wasn't at the Black Lips show and I don't know their music, but Femke van Delft, intrepid Nerve photographer - who is still showing pictures alongside Bev Davies and others at the JEM Gallery for a few more days - was there. The following is Femke's account of shooting the concert).

On Thursday I get an email from (Nerve Magazine music editor) Adrian giving me the green light to shoot The Black Lips at Richards on Richards. I need to meet the Live Nations rep at 10:45 pm for a briefing. I am not that happy about it. That means that I will have to battle my way through the already anticipating, fixated legion to get to the front stage. My strategy: compensate with height. I wear my 4 inch platform boots making me 6 foot 4….midable.

The show is running late. I shoot the first two acts for fun and meet the rep to find out that Jared Swilley has been held at the border, a Vancouver bass ringer, Curtis ?, is the replacement. I find out later that Curtis had 15 minutes to prepare and borrow the bass from Vancougar.

The crowd is mostly made up of inebriated 20 somethings in the pit and old guard punk enthusiasts sitting back on the edge of music. I shove my way to the front, stage left. By the second song, Ian Brown rhythmically kicks the monitors from washing up onto his feet as waves of 185 lb drunk young men full on mosh.

Feet flat on the floor, those black leather platforms make my legs 38 inches long. I discover my hips are perfect stage height. OK, maybe I was asking for it. I bend my torso onto the stage, tripod my elbows and shoot. Suddenly, I can feel some young zit-faced puppy dry humping me from behind. I double fist elbow him [hopefully] to the head and yell…."This is incest! I could be your mother." I then hockey board the two guys next to me for good measure [which I actually feel guilty about since they were obviously decent] yelling "I just want to do my fucking job!" Turn back to the stage and catch Cole tossing and catching his own gob (see above). Better move out of the pit to stage right, which apparently is the best position to get Anderson projectile vomiting while never interrupting his guitar riff. [and what's with that no flash rule? These could have been perfect!] Now it's time to go upstairs and get that shot of him drumming like a drunk sister in The White Stripes.

Best comment about Brown's mouthful of gold caps from Dave Chokroun, ex punk rock drummer for WAD. "Hey, what's with Ian Brown's teeth? Doesn't he believe in banks?"
Best comment about Brown's mouthful of gold caps from Dave Chokroun, ex punk rock drummer for WAD. "Hey, what's with Ian Brown's teeth? Doesn't he believe in banks?"

- Femke