Posts Tagged ‘meshuggah’
Off Festival 2011 – Day 1
Best festival? Best party? Best mates? I have one answer for that: Off Festival 2011. Everything was just perfect (except for the thunderstorm and me going back in the train with too much stuff) – we reserved four rooms in one hostel, talked about music and gigs all the time, swaped CDs, met some new people and ate in the best veggie place in Poland (in my opinion).
And the people. You’ve got to love off because of the people. All kinds of friends from all over Poland (and abroad), some you see every day, some just for a couple days in a month, some you meet once a year… But the music junkies are all there. Metalheads, ambient-lovers, drone troopers, pop fanatics, cold wave surfers, experimental geeks, dance dudes – Off, like any other Polish fest I’ve been to, brings them all together for three days od musical bliss. I don’t know ANYBODY (that’s right!) who didn’t like this year’s edition. Talked with around a 100 (or more…) people and everybody were happy as hell.
The bitter part was that the day before my clients server went down and because of some malfunctions, I had to upload the pics one by one. The biggest drag of all time and before I got to enjoy some free time before the gigs, I found myself uploading the pics one-by-one like crazy. Even worse, days before Off my D300 went crazy. Bogna Kociumbas helped A LOT lending me her D700 with 24-70 2.8 plus 85 1.4. A company of brothers that is hard to forget and for the three next days it was pure bliss to shot with this gear. I think, it was then when I’ve decided to buy the D700 as quickly as I could. And if anybody asks what’s the best festival coverage I’ve done in 2011 – I’m putting all my bets on Off 2011. Really nailed those shots!:)
NOTE: Do NOT use any of those photos. All the coprights belong to me (Joanna ‘frota’ Kurkowska) and some pics belong exclusively to Wp.pl. And I’m good at sending invoices ;)
Knock Out Festival 2009 @ Hala TS Wisła, Kraków – 11/12 VII 2009
It was a second time I’ve attended a metal festival this big (first was Metal Hammer Festival in 2007 – but it was much, much bigger and it was one of the first festivals I’ve attended as a photographer). Quite a line-up, ranging from progressive metal, sludge, death metal and trash to post-rock and metalcore bands.
Great performances by the foreing gigants such as The Dillinger Escape Plan (I couldn’t make it the first two times they played in Poland so was very happy to see them now – if you haven’t seen them, do it and you won’t regret it!), Cynic and Meshuggah. Apart from DEP, I caught two other bands everyone has been talking about – Blindead and Tides From Nebula. The first one presented a heavy mixture of sludge and progressive sounds – if I could compare it to any other band it would probably be somwhere between Neurosis, Rosetta and Cult Of Luna. Highly recommended and it really makes me proud that we are from the same town. But the TriCity wasv(and still is) lucky when it comes to bands and artists: Apteka, Behemoth, Kury, Illusion, Pink Freud, Kobiety, Leszek Możdzer… As for Tides From Nebula, the crowd was served with lost of instrumental post-rock and post-metal noises. Convinced me to buy their album as soon as the new paycheck arrives. And I finally admit that I’m not really a trash-girl. There are small exceptions for this genre of music but both, Testament and Voivod, just don’t belong there but the crowd was more than happy.
It was the first edition of the festival, and I hope not the last one. Pretty strange that there were around 2,500 of people there. The ticket price was medicore, the fest takes place during holidays and the line-up was great – I really thought that I will see crowds around 4,000-5, or even a little more…
Photos were done for Wp.pl to illustrate a review of the fest written by Zbigniew Zegler. You can read the feature from both days of the fest here and here. However, the photos I’ve chosen for this blog entry are sometimes different from the ones that got to the review – wanted to show something a little different.
