Tom Martin

I realized the other day that for some reason I have posted very few images from Leeds 2010 on my flickr or on here. Which seemed slightly ridiculous to me since I shot the Friday and Sat for NME and the Sunday for NME.com and was generally very busy most of the weekend! So this inspired me to have a root through my Leeds '10 shots and cobble together a few of my favourites! 

So here we go. I remember this being one of the first shots I took when I arrived on site and went for a bit of a wonder to do some atmosphere shots. These girls were waiting in the NME signing tent queue although I can't remember what for?

The Libertines re-union was one of the 'hot topics' of this summers Leeds & Reading - took me bloody aaages to weasel my way into this position! The crowd was absolutely jam packed and I gave up trying to get any further once I'd cleared the sound tower.

Dodgems. Nothing better than having a few beers and wizzing round in a little electric car causing other punters spinal damage...

...Of course you could simply amuse yourself by rolling down a hill with no trousers on like this young lady.

I think the most anticipated comedy performances at Leeds '10 had to be that of Angelos Epithemiou, having very recently been shot to cult stardom with his appearances on Shooting Stars. Seen here playing the flute on a sweeping brush, Angelos performed to an absolutely packed out tent with people queuing up all the way round the outside just to get a glimpse. 

Here he is annoying the staff of one of the food trailers. Everyone always immediately asks me 'What was he like, in real life?' like they really want me to say 'He's exactly the same'. Sorry to disappoint but 'Angelos' does not stay in character all the time! Dan was a very polite articulate chap and nothing like Angelos at all!

Heres Franky boy doing his thing. Obviously immense Gallows set as usual - there's some absolutely mental Youtube footage of this set (Which I've now found... HERE). Here we can also photographer extraordinaire and International Woman of mystery Shirlaine Forrest on the far right - just one of the million billion photographers that turn up to every Gallows set.

Queens Of The Stone Ages. I really don't get what all the fuss is about QOTSA and subsequently spent most of this afternoon arguing with various NME Journo's in the Portacabin - still not sold it to me though.

On the Saturday evening NME writer Gavin 'I am a genius and the voice of a generation' Haynes and I ventured into the campsite. Gavin wanted to see if it was as 'ferrel' as everyone goes on about. It was actually quite sedate - but having camped in what I now often smugly call 'Regular' myself I can confirm that this all changes at night! Particularly on Sunday night when the 'tradition' riots kick off and everything is on fire for about 3 hours!

The reprehensible Blink 182. My girlfriend Charlotte's all time favourite band and therefore the bain of my existence.

To be fair to them they played a strong set - I massively doubted them as a 'headline' band but they very much owned it. Unfortunately their obnoxious, un-witty and powerfully un-funny between song stage banter seemed to undermine them a little in the eyes of many a music Journalist that I overheard. Oh well Charlotte had a great time (the geek!).

Midday Sunday - first act of the day was Gaggle which I watched most of with Vibrations Magazine writers and Leeds-music-journo acers Sam Saunders and Rob Wright. Rob Wright was drinking what appeared to be some sort of homemade moonshine?! Suffice to say that he was still partying hard when I caught up with him about 11 hours later.

Yet more Leeds revelers!...

...Some hardcore weirdos.  

I think the definite highlight of Leeds 2010 for me was shooting Weezer, side of stage on the big'un. Never been up there until I went to shoot these. Rivers came out playing football for some reason, which the crowd loved.

They played a fantastically entertaining set, to be honest I just thought they'd stand there and run through the songs but Rivers went nuts running all over the place and climbing into the crowd. I do remember thinking to myself how much he looked like Woody Allen in that jacket and trousers though!

And as if all that wasn't enough I got to go back to the dressing room and meet Rivers after the set. God I wish I'd had my fifty mil to shoot this! Not making that mistake again. I had to photograph a brief meet and great between We Are Scientists and Weezer which was very funny to watch. WAS's had to be on stage for their own set on the other side of the site about 5 minutes after we started, but kept insisting that they weren't bothered because they'd rather talk to Rivers! Fair enough.

 

And finally... G'n'F'n'R'. Don't blame me for the quality of this shot - blame Axl who decided there would be no photographers allowed in the pit for this set. So I yet again ventured out into the great unwashed to shoot this at 300mm. On the plus side there does appear to be the disembodied head of Michael Stipe in the bottom left hand corner so it's not all bad....

....If you've made it this far - THANKS FOR READING!!!