Wedding & Event Photography Blog of Simon Butler Photography: Tramlines 2013

Friday at Tramlines was amazing but Saturday and Sunday were, believe it or not even better!

My first assignment on Saturday was to photograph the 65daysofstatic art installation at the Millennium Gallery. During the day it was quite interesting with lots of looping video and music but when I went back for one of their 30 minute sets the whole thing came alive. 65dos were amazing, playing live constantly with no break for the whole 30 minutes. Unfortunately I had to leave with 10 mins to go because I needed to get to Public Service Broadcasting but I thoroughly enjoyed their set.

One of the main sponsors of Tramlines was the University of Sheffield. They ran lots of events and activities in the Winter Garden and Millennium Square and my next assignment was to cover these.

They had lots of experiments that kids could try in Millennium Square:

The University Belly Dancing Society put on a display and then gave a belly dancing workshop which proved very popular!

The university was also involved in providing street theatre shows like this amazing guy who rode around on a piano on wheels, stopping every so often to play.

There was a wedding on in the Town Hall and the bride & groom posed next to the pianist!

This pink-inspired drumming band were amazing.

In the afternoon I headed over to the Fat Cat to catch the fantastic Everly Pregnant Brothers play on the roof of the pub’s toilets. I was fortunate to be able to sneak onto the roof and capture a few shots of the band playing to the estimated 4000-strong crowd.

It was a fantastic 2 hour long gig with lots of hilarity and sing-a-long moments!

Behind me this guy decided that he wanted to dance along to the Brothers on a car so he did!

Having had a great sing-a-long I headed back into town and spotted a rather dapper young man being interviewed outside the Harley. I took a quick pap-style shot and was thrilled to discover later that the man in question was J. Willgoose, Esq from Public Service Broadcasting, my assignment for Saturday night.

You can watch the interview here:

The band were simply amazing and were the highlight of the whole weekend for me. I was so impressed that I’ve bought tickets to see them in November when they return to Sheffield to play the Leadmill.

Talking of the Leadmill, this was my next destination, to shoot Charlie Boyer and the Voyeurs. I got there early and caught the support act, The Violet May, who were excellent and very photogenic:

Unfortunately in comparison to the support act Charlie Boyer and the Voyeurs were a disappointment:

To prove just how diverse Tramlines is, Sunday started off with a visit to the wrestling at the Library Theatre. Yes,wrestling! It gave me plenty of great photo opportunities even if the wrestling was just as fixed as it was back in the days of Big Daddy et al!

After the wrestling it was time for my one and only trip to the main stage at Devonshire Green to catch Veronica Falls who were great.

I then headed over to the Peace Gardens to catch the ‘International Moment’ from the University of Sheffield. This was over in about 20 seconds so I failed to capture anything interesting. But I did capture some kids making some colourful graffiti art.

After the International Moment a South African electro-dance band called Shangaan Electro took to the stage and they were a revelation – 184+ BPM dance rhythms and 4 amazing singers / dancers who danced frenetically and sang in a very South African style. They were amazing and also very photogenic!

What followed was a breakdancing competition and I initially captured the warm up before shooting the main competition on the stage.

I then headed over to the O2 Academy to capture the brilliant Rolo Tomassi. Just like last year the lead singer’s frenetic dancing, head banging and movement were difficult to capture but I managed 3 good shots.