Rock City Art Store

This photo was taken at the Stade de France in Paris. Half way through his set David suddenly took off his headphones, jumped out from behind the decks and ran down to the very front of the stage in front of 80,000 people. I looked at David’s publicist who gave me the nod of approval to run after him to take a few shots, and all I could think about as I rushed down the stairs with my camera in hand to catch up with David was ‘Whatever you do, do not trip!’

I had been approached by Lionel’s label about shooting his two shows at the O2 in 2009 and called his manager to discuss the shoot. His manager told me that Lionel wanted a complete visual documentation of his shows at the O2. “Backstage, on stage – that sort of thing”. “But I’m not sure I’m explaining it correctly, so let me get Lionel for you”, he went on to say. At that moment I wasn’t sure if he was joking but a few seconds later I heard the words “Hello, this Lionel. How are you?” on the other end of the phone.

When you get commissioned to shoot a band abroad you usually fly in on the day of the shoot and head back the following day. So, when I was commissioned to shoot Massive Attack in Sydney for a live review it seemed like a rather long way to go for a shoot. Luckily, the band played in front of the Sydney Opera House over two consecutive nights and as the label took pity on the reviewer and me, we were allowed to stay for 4 1/2 days on the other side of the world…

It’s hard to believe that Lady Gaga only burst onto the scene in late 2008. This photo was taken in Manchester on her first nationwide tour of the UK on which she supported NE-YO and the Pussycat Dolls. Even though it was a rather small production, you could already tell that the visual aspect of Lady Gaga’s performance was incredibly important to her. However, I don’t think anyone could have predicted just how much it would evolve over the next few years.

In March 2011 I became the only photographer on Katy Perry’s entire 2011 world tour to be given photo pit access and shoot her entire show on top of that. This was easily one of my favourite shows to shoot in 2011 – the production was stunning and I came away with a set of unique photos.