A photo from a couple of years ago. GWR No 6024 “King Edward 1″ with a full rake of chocolate and cream coaches passing Coryton Cove, Dawlish with the return “Torbay Express”. Only the solitary Mk2 coach in the formation gives away the fact it’s not a genuine 1960s train.
A few photos of Mostly Autumn’s September tour, from the shows at The Met in Bury, and from the final night of the tour at The Komedia in Bath three weeks later.
I managed to see the band five times in total on the tour, including back to back dates at The Spirit of 66 in Verviers in Belgium, and De Boerderij in Zoetermeer in The Netherlands, the first time I’ve actually travelled abroad to see the band. The band were on consistently great form throughout the tour.
There are a lot more photos from these two gigs in my photo gallery.
My review of the weekend is now up on Trebuchet Magazine, here are a few of my photos from the weekend.
Virgil and the Accellerators were an early highlight, playing some guitar-shredding electric blues.
Heather Findlay played her first full band gig on a big stage since November last year, and went down a storm.
Sankara, fronted by Gareth Jones, formerly of The Reasoning played the CRS stage, and made a strong impression with their mix of hard rock, metal and AOR.
Winter in Eden, fronted by Vicky Johnson, played an absolute blinder as special guests on the CRS stage.
Silverjet. Because first thing in the morning, some back to basics rock and roll is what a festival needs.
Stolen Earth were another band who rose to the big occasion to play one of the best sets they’ve ever done.
Panic Room did what Panic Room do, which was to blow everybody away. They really should have been far higher up the bill.
Chantel McGregor delivered another incendiary set, great songwriting and some spectacular guitar pyrotechnics.
Flanborough Head played some delightful old-school prog. There is nothing quite like a flute solo backed by Mellotron.
Mr So and So impressed me a lot, they came over a lot better than last year.
The mighty Touchstone stormed the stage to deliver an impressive high-energy set.
Mostly Autumn, special guests on the Sunday night and playing their first gig since the end of last year did not disappoint.
The last couple of months, as is usual for this time of year, has got completely silly gig-wise. I’ve reviewed as many as I’ve had time for, either here or on Trebuchet Magazine – These are some of my photos.
We start at Bilston, back in October. Here’s Heather Findlay and Chris Johnson playing as an acoustic support for Touchstone, at The Robin 2. Great to see Heather back on stage again after far too long an absence.
Touchstone just rock. Kim Elkie Seviour is a great frontwoman and visual focus.
Moo Bass and Henry Rogers make a powerful rhythm section, and put the “rock” into “prog-rock”!
Heather Findlay followed that successful support tour with a headline tour of her own, with a full band. This is from the opening date of the tour, at The Brook.
The unplugged segment was a highlight of the set.
Two days later, Heather’s old band Mostly Autumn played an absolute blinder at The Grand Opera House in York.
Olivia Sparnenn is far more confident fronting the band after eighteen months in the role. The huge smile said it all.
Anne-Marie Helder plays a big part in making Mostly Autumn a great live act in her role as multi-instrumentalist and backing singer. And playing completely different instruments (flute and keys) to what she plays in Panic Room.
In December, it was back to The Robin, with Morpheus Rising supporting Panic Room. This picture ought to sum up what they sound like.
Anne-Marie Helder and Paul Davies of Panic Room blowing the roof off The Robin at the start of the set. The pyro (yes, they used pyro) turned out to be unnecessary – There was more than enough fire in the music itself.
I never had this trouble at Bristol a few weeks ago
With today’s glorious summer weather I decided it was an ideal time to document the old GWR station at Reading before the whole lot gets bulldozed to make way for the shiny new station.
When I got there I was told to find the duty manager to seek permission. She then told me I could only photograph the station infrastructure, and could not photograph trains. Given that I’ve taken thousands of photographs at UK and overseas stations over 25 years, and never before have train companies ever tried to stop me taking photographs, I really don’t understand what First Great Western are playing at.
I know some large stations tried to prevent photographers a few years back through a combination post-9/11 paranoia and corporate backside-covering, but changed their tune after the resulting PR backlash.
Has anyone else had problems at Reading or any other FGW stations? Is this a new policy? What exactly is going on? It’s certainly at odds with the official photography policy of Network Rail, who own the station, or the guidelines given by The British Transport Police.
I sent this complaint to First Great Western customer services
I arrived at Reading this morning with the intention of taking photographs of the Reading station prior to redevelopment. On arrival I was advised by the barrier staff to speak to the duty manager.
The duty manager then told me that while I would be permitted to photograph the physical station infrastucture, I would not be permitted to photograph any trains.
I was extremely surprised and very disappointed on being told this, and decided to leave immediately without taking any photographs at all.
Is this a specific local rule affecting Reading, or is there a blanket ban on railway photography across all FGW stations? This is very much at odds with the widely-publicised photography policy of other TOCs such as Virgin Trains. I have certainly taken many photographs of trains at FGW stations (most recently at Bristol Temple Meads a few weeks ago) without being challenged or questioned by platform staff.
I must stress that all FGW staff I encountered were unfailingly polite.
So now, rather than spending this glorious weather outside with my camera, I’m reduced to sitting at home complaining on the Internet. I wonder what sort of response that complaint will get. Given the stories of low staff morale I’m hearing from inside FGW, they seem to be suffering from serious management problems, for which I strongly suspect my troubles are another symptom.
Update
I have now received a rather bland and somewhat patronising reply.
Dear Mr Hall
Thank you for your email of 29 September 2011. I am sorry you could not take the photographs you wished to at Reading station on the same day.
We expect everyone representing our company to be as helpful as possible at all times. We do welcome rail enthusiasts at our stations who want to take photographs for private purposes. There are various guidelines designed to ensure you have a safe and enjoyable experience in the pursuit of your interest. A key priority for us is to ensure the safety of our passengers and staff. However it is the discretion of the Station Manager to set the photography limits at a particular station.
Thank you again for bringing your experience to my attention. I do hope that future journeys with us will be trouble-free.
Yours sincerely
Siddhi Minawala
Customer Services Advisor
I do not really consider this a satisfactory answer, and I’m assuming that Reading station is off-limits for railway photography for the foreseeable future. And I very much doubt that we’ll ever be given a satisfactory reason.
Update No 2
Now get a second reply, which strongly implies that someone in First Great Western has been reading either this blog or the thread I started on RMWeb with well over a hundred replies.
Dear Mr Hall
I am writing to apologise for the problems you had recently at Reading station, when you were not permitted to take photographs of trains. I understand you were unhappy with the last response we sent you on this matter and I am sorry.
We do have to work within certain guidelines when allowing customers to photograph our trains, however this is something we will permit where we can. There is no reason why you were not allowed to do this, and I am really sorry that you were misadvised at the station about only being able to photograph buildings. I have passed this feedback on to my colleagues at Reading, who I am sure will take the necessary action to make sure this doesn’t happen again.
If you wish to take pictures of the trains at Reading, you do need to approach the Station Manager first, who will go over the guidelines with you. We don’t want to stop you from pursuing your hobby and I am sorry that our response has not been particularly helpful.
I hope this now clears things up and that you will accept my apologies for the way this matter has been handled.
Please do feel free to get in touch if I can help with anything else in the future.
Yours sincerely
Jo Coverley
Customer Relations Senior Officer
Stolen Earth’s official launch gig took place on September 17th, in the Post Office Social club in York, the same venue as the launch gig for Breathing Space’s album “Coming Up For Air”, which seems half a lifetime away now. As a showcase gig, it attracted a sizeable audience, with a lot of dedicated fans travelling far and wide. Nice to see Bryan and Livvy from Mostly Autumn in the crowd.
While the band had formed from the ashes of Breathing Space, almost all the material was new. Much of the set had been premièred at the Cambridge Rock Festival back in August, and I certainly remembered songs such as “Mirror Mirror” and the anthemic “Perfect Wave” from that performance. To fill out a headline-length show they included a couple of covers, an excellent take of The Eagles’ “Hotel California” which got some of the audience up an dancing, and Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here” with Paul Teasdale on 12-string. They encored with Paul’s “Clear”, the only song recorded by Breathing Space to remain in the set.
Unfortunately the sound mix left a bit to be desired, with John Sykes’ keys too low in the mix and some of the Adam’s vocals a bit muffled. That combined with monitor problems meant the set didn’t quite have the power and energy of their triumphal Cambridge set. Not that it was a bad gig by any means, and I’ve heard far, far worse mixes at Breathing Space gigs over the years, but it does show that for their sort of atmospheric multi-layered rock the soundman is just as important as anyone on stage.
But despite those sound problems, Stolen Earth do seem have got off to a good start. They’ve got a powerful set of songs, and while there are strong echoes of Breathing Space in their sound, Heidi’s soulful voice and Adam’s very Floydy guitar gives them a distinctive musical identity of their own. I’m very much looking forward to seeing how their music develops, and hope they record an album sooner rather than later.
Still working on migrating photos from my defunct Fotopic website to my new photo gallery. These are from 2005 visit to Switzerland, not all of which I’d actually uploaded the first time round.
I’d previously associated Lydney with Panic Room’s first ever gig, more than three years ago. The Forest of Dean Railway wasn’t running that day, but after seeing Mostly Autumn pay their annual visit to Gloucester on the Saturday night, I decided to make a weekend of it and visit the railway on the Sunday. I it was that I ended up travelling behind a GWR pannier on the line as winds its way through the forest from Lydney to Parkend.
The Dean Forest Railway isn’t just kettles, and like many preserved lines has a significant diesel fleet. As well as quite a number of main-line locos, including a couple of diesel-electrics, they’ve got some nicely-restored shunters, including this beast.
While their service trains consisted of repainted BR Mk1s, with interiors unchanged since the days of Network South-East, they did have this beautifully-restored Hawksworth auto-trailer in BR maroon.
A lack of coordinated timetabling meant a two-hour wait for a connection at Lydney. There’s pretty much nothing near Lydney station, so photographing passing trains is pretty much all you can do. This is an example of the mundane which railway photographers all-too frequently ignore, a class 143 railbus on a Cardiff-bound local.
More interesting from an enthusiast point of view is this Freightliner 66 on a ballast train, possibly connected with the same Sunday engineering work that saw many diverted trains passing through Lydney, making it far busier than on a normal weekday.
In between two Panic Room gigs I spent a very enjoyable time on the Severn Valley railway.
50035 “Ark Royal” leaving Highley on the Severn Valley Railway. I’m not totally convinced that the orange and back Loadhaul livery really suits the class 50, especially when pulling a rake of GWR coaches. Best to invoke the “It’s my train set” rule, I think.
I suppose much the same goes for a GWR “Manor” with a full rake of LNER varnished teak coaches. One thing I like about the Severn Valley Railway is the way they take coach restoration seriously.
And the other great thing about the SVR is that there’s a good real ale pub by every station! No better way of chilling out than sitting by the river Severn with beer.
Mostly Autumn’s annual visit to Bury Met last month was the first time I’ve ever travelled to a gig by kettle. Bury Met used to be a local gig for me, but now I’ve moved down south. Because all the affordable hotels in Bury were full, I ended up staying in the delightfully-named town of Ramsbottom, reached by means of the East Lancashire Railway. May well be the first time I’ve used a preserved railway as a means of getting from A to B rather than just for the ride.
It does feel like I’ve I’m living the blog tagline here – especially when The Trackside Inn at Bury serves an excellent selection of real ales, including one brewed by The Phoenix Brewery.
I won’t write an in-depth review since I wrote one for Salisbury in April. But I will say the gig itself was another superb performance. The band are really on form on this tour, and Bury Met always has a great audience. Not for nothing did the band record this gig for a planned live album. Olivia Sparnenn is now far more confident as the band’s frontwoman, and everyone else was on great form too, aided by a really good mix.
As well as the sound, I’ve got to compliment the lighting engineer too. Often when photographing gigs I find some band members, especially Iain Jennings, get hidden in shadows at the side of the stage. This time it was possible to get good photos of everyone. even the drummer. I’ve put a lot more photos on my post-Fotopic photo site – http://kalyr.smugmug.com