Highlight: The Toilets in One Whitehall.
Lowlight: Not being to explore every room!
Fill in: Artist showcases for the label management are always a tense affair. Not the easiest of gigs for artists, who are normally debuting their new work or even performing for the first time, they have to impress a room full of seen-it-all, been there, done that senior international music bods all of whom are at the top of their game. The event is usually held in some top notch hotel or hip and trendy hideaway and this time the venue was Gladstone's favourite place to be when solving the country's problems - One Whitehall. Even entering the building you are filed with historical wonder as a young Winston Churchill glares down at you from an archway and an assortment of dukes, earls and barons litter the staircase walls. From the various intriguing doors sounds of all description spewed out from Jazz music to deep political conversations. It was like being in the hallway of Alice in Wonderland where each door seemed to promise a land of surreal entertainment behind its heavy, wooden panel. Tonight's entertainment was provided by the sumptuous guitarist from Montenegro - Milos, and the evocative singer Melody Gardot who can make an intake of breath sound like a whisper from heaven itself.
Tech spec: The brief for this is easy - DO WHAT YOU'RE TOLD. The artists are usually very nervous and very often not open to having photographs at all so you have to make them and everyone around them feel at ease - that means keeping happy (in no particular order) the event organiser, the head of the record label, his or her PA, the stage manager, the sound person, the lighting person, the PR, the artist manager, the hotel manager, etc.etc. For this gig I was to be not seen and not heard, so I talked a couple of Managing Directors from Sweden into standing in front of me whilst I shot between their heads using the quiets cameras I own - Nikon D7000 and Nikon V1 - and only shooting in the noisy bits of what was an acoustic set.
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