perfectskylines

Huge Update...

2008-04-21T23:05:37Z

So...after handing in my applications for different universities I finally updated my gallery, therefore there's quite a few new concert photos to check out :)
We'll start out with the most recent one, Aiden, for the rest just check the LJ-Cut :)

Panic (no exclamation mark) at the Disco

2008-03-07T19:52:13Z

Got the chance to take some photos at their show in Cologne, Germany.
Their lighting was probably the shitiest I have ever seen in a venue of this size so far, also we got kicked out after 2 songs, not the regular three ones, and during the second song there was no light at all except for when the chorus came in.
After getting out of the pit I was ready to bite someones head off, seeing how I had really been looking forward to taking pictures of them.
Anyhow...if you want to have a look at the photos anyways, as always you can do so by clicking HERE or by clicking the picture of Brendon...

The Blackout

2008-01-16T00:49:09Z

Are there any Welsh bands out there who are not nice?! Might be the case, but I haven't met any of those yet it seems. My latest photos are of the Blackout, a bunch of really awesome guys, and just like always you can see them by either clicking HERE or by clicking the picture of Sean...

Update...

2007-12-19T02:06:47Z

And once again new pictutres, this time of Silverstein and their lovely support act Bless the Fall, whose singer was in the crowd as much as he was onstage. As always you can either find them by clicking HERE or by clicking the picture below...

Ps.: If anyone is wondering why there are less pictures of the headliner than the support act, well, lets just say artifical fog, red light or no light at all don't make for the best photos to be taken :S

Heaps of new photos...

2007-11-28T17:12:40Z

Quite a big update o.O
Got the chance to take pictures of Atreyu& Still Remains as well as of Beatsteaks & Turbostaat.
They're all up on my page, as always you can either find them by clicking HERE or for just the pictures of Atreyu, by clicking the picture of the lovely Dan.

Taste Of Chaos

2007-11-17T17:08:01Z

Oh wow. That was Taste of Chaos indeed. All the pictures (or maybe just Bert's face, who knows) pretty much killed my computer, but I finally managed to get them up on my homepage.

Bands include:
The Used
Rise Against
Aiden
The Blackout
Gallows

You can find them by clicking HERE or by clicking the picture below.

Madina Lake pictures for Cologne

2007-09-19T01:44:35Z

Just click the image to see the rest of the gallery or click (here)
I got quite carried away and took heaps of pictures since they allowed us to take pictures during their whole set. Mateo isn't in any of them, because he wasn't able to make it to Europe :(
My interview with Matthew will be up on dosenmusik.de shortly :)

FINALLY! www.stripesandstars.de

2007-09-14T00:33:47Z

Hello^^
As you can probably tell from the subject line already, I finally have my own website, called www.stripesandstars.de!!!

It's not perfect, as it's the first time I've tried to create a website, and it's not completely done either, but I would be very happy if you had a look and told me what you think :)

Just click (here)

♥

Lostprophets Interview

2007-02-03T22:46:56Z

So...as promised, here is the full Lostprophets interview :)
It's the way it was right after typing it down, I didn't change it around to make it sound smoother because there was not much sense, seeing how only the translated version was going to be used anyways. Plus, there's random notes to it as well. But yea, enough of that, have fun reading and tell me what you think :)

It’s good to have you guys here finally. Liberation Transmission has been out for almost half a year and you already had a huge success in the Uk , so how do you feel about the record now, that you’ve already been touring with it for that amount of time?
Ian: It was the album we wanted to write you know, we really wanted to write a really kind of song-based record, kinda really catchy. We did it and we’ve got of our system and it was fun, we’re having a lot of time playing it. But it’s cool, and now we’re getting ready to do the next one.

Already?
Ian: Yea, we want it out next year. We’ve never done that, you know we’ve always gone away and like wrote. But this time we don’t want to go away, we want to keep touring and playing, while we’re recording as well. And so, before people know it, we’ll come back with a new record.

Like Start Something, Liberation Transmission polarised your fans and it was the whole Sellout discussion all over again…
Ian: The thing is, if we had done what everybody wanted us to do, but not what we wanted to do, than that’s selling out. Because we’re not doing what we want to do. Like, with every record we do exactly what we want, completely disregarding everyone else, which is the ultimate example of staying true to yourself.

So therefore, is it also something you’re actually aiming for? The whole polarisation and…
Ian: No, it’s not. What we aim for is to write music we like, to be true to ourselves when we’re writing music. That’s the only agenda we have. And it could come out really poppy, it could come out really heavy. We don’t think you know, some of these fans might be a bit pissed off, and even though we don’t really like this style of song, let’s write this song for them. That’s like selling out. That’s writing for someone else. But that wouldn’t make us happy. Like, just cuz people don’t like it, people toss the word Sellout around without really knowing what it means.

You’ve also been categorised in like…
Ian:…..every genre.
Yea, and that doesn’t bother you, either?
Mike: That bugs me.
Ian: Yea, two years ago, we were Nu Metal, now we’re emo, you know it’s like it changes constantly.

So, what do you predict is coming up next?
Ian: New Emo.
Mike: Or Elmo.
Ian: Or Momo, or Memo.(laughs)

What is the biggest misconception about you then, apart from that?
Ian: That we’re assholes.
Mike: (bitter) Still that we’re Nu Metal.
Ian (thoughtful): People think we’re arrogant assholes. I don’t know why. But then, you know I was talking to, actually not everybody, just me, but I was talking to Sean about it, from the Blackout, and he said he gets the same thing. And I think what it is that we just have the same type of humour, where we’re just constantly trying to make jokes and be funny and even though we think it’s funny, maybe some people, other people don’t. So they think we’re being arrogant. (Jamie enter the room) Is Jamie jumping in on us? (Jamie grins and sits down)

In what way does the critical way the fans watch you in everything you’re doing influence you, or does it influence you at all?
Ian: (thinks) You know what, there seems to be this unwritten law, that fans can say whatever they want, but band members can’t. Do you know what I mean? Because like, if a band member says something back, it’s like “how dare you, I’m your fan, I bought your record, how dare you?!” And I’m like, why is it okay for you to talk shit about me, and the minute I talk shit about you, you pull up the “Oh I bought your record” card. It’s like, fuck it then. If it’s about that, rather you not buy our records, and we have a proper discussion. That’s the whole basis, that we’re equal. You know like, fans and us, we’re not like the band in our high tower you know and everyone can go “blablabla” but then the minute we say something, we’re not allowed. I think people are just really shocked because bands don’t usually reply. Or that bands don’t really bring people up on it. And if people are talking shit, I’ll call them out on it you know. And then they get all “boo” and it’s like “you’re being disrespectful to your fans” and I’m like, no I’m not. I’m having respect because I’m answering you. I’m challenging you to an argument. How many other bands do that?

And do people get back to you at that argument?
Ian:Oh, everybody just gets wrecked. Nobody beats me at an argument. Cause most of the time it’s a stupid arguments. They don’t make any sense, they just moan around.

And in the band, do you also beat everyone at any argument?
Ian: (sounding sad) No…We’re all pretty good arguers. We’re all on the debate team. In the band if we have an argument it’ll go on for like ages. It’s just... we write music we want to write at that time, and yea, it pisses people off because some people get into us for a certain reason, like “oh, I liked you when you were heavier. Now you’re lighter, you’ve sold old. Well, No, we’re still doing what we want, and that’s not fucking selling out.
Jamie: It’s easy to shout fucking sell-outs from your dads computer in his fucking spare room.

When writing the new record, what did you focus on like, obviously doing what you want to do, but were there certain aspects you wanted it to have?
Ian: We wanted…the only conscious thing that we wanted to write classic songs. Like try not to do too much of just random riffs, and random bits, we just tried to write like, twelve classic songs, catchy songs, and that was out only agenda. And that’s not to say the next record will be like, riffs everywhere. Once we’re on a path, it doesn’t mean we’re on it for good. I don’t think we’re changing that much…
Jamie: We just challenge ourselves, and that’s what I think you should really do. Otherwise you get bored with yourself. You have to be up for the challenge, which will take you down different routes, but it’s not changing it’s not deliberately fucking trying to be something that’s hip or in fashion.

Press wise the reception for the album was pretty good, but do you still think you have to work twice as hard in order to prove yourselves to the UK Media?
Ian: Not just the UK media. More to the world-wide media, yea. For some reason we’ve been mislabeled and misunderstood constantly, since we were out. Like only yesterday we did an interview where they said, so you know, you sound a lot like P.O.D. and I was like, seriously let’s just stop there, what the fuck. What albums have you been listening to, where there’s rap on it out of the three albums? Demos, okay, but these people wouldn’t have known demos. Then, demos don’t even really count, anyways. Demos we did when we were seventeen, that didn’t even get released, that 20 of our friends got in Wales. It’s like, why don’t we talk about the three albums we’ve actually released on our record label for the past six years? Not something that we did fucking 12 years ago when we were kids.
Jamie: It’s like saying, I shit my pants, I shit in the bath, yea, I was three years old.
Ian: Yea, it’s like let’s have some fucking relevance here, it’s so stupid. It’s constantly that misconception all the time. In the UK it’s not so much now, people are kind of more understanding. Because in the UK we’ve always toured with our bands/friends, like My Chemical Romance, Taking Back Sunday, and so people are like okay, but it’s more like the rest of the world. Not unfortunately, but we came out coincidentally at exactly the same time as Linkin Park, and toured with them. But just because we toured with a band, doesn’t mean we are that band.
Jamie: We toured with Run DMC
Ian: Yea, so we played with Run DMC, but are we Hip Hop? I mean, we toured with The Bronx, are we fucking L.a. Streetpunk? And we toured with Avenged Sevenfold, are we that band? No. I could list off all of these bands we’ve toured with and nobody mentions, but everybody goes, oh Linkin Park, Linkin Park-
Jamie: Yea, and also they were like, ohh you did Ozzfest, and it’s like, yea we did Ozzfest with The Used and Glassjaw, it’s like fucking, come on….
Ian: But it seems to happen more outside the UK, especially in Europe, when we’re doing interviews, everyone’s like, so, you and P.O.D and Linkin Park and I’m like, what the fuck are you talking about dude. It’s like, we came out at the same time and now that was it and we were six guys doing catchy kind of Rock stuff, but we all came from hardcore bands and stuff like that so it was just coincidence. We’re constantly having to prove ourselves, not prove ourselves but change people’s perceptions all the time because people are misunderstood about us. But not so much in the Uk I think because we’re there a lot, we’ve managed to like, make people realise, like “alright, I get it now”. But because I guess we don’t spend as much time in Europe people’s opinions are stuck back in like 2001, and you’re like “noooo listen to me.”

You said that the next album is gonna come out next year, could you imagine doing a concept record?
Ian: Uhm. Maybe, possibly. I think. Sometimes I think we’re too cynical and too down to earth as a band to get carried away with fantasy. We’ll do it, and then we’ll think it sounds cheesy. We like to sing about reality and stuff that affects us. But the next record will be darker. A lot darker.
Jamie: I’m the arty farty bullshit one in the band so I find many way you can do it and still be non cheesy and integrity based, there’s six of us in the band, there’s a democracy
Ian: Maybe, who knows. But, we’ve always done really positive albums and I want to do a really negative one. Cause I’ve never done it. The thought of doing it really excites me, like doing something we’ve never done. Just doing a really dark and negative album, cuz none expects it!
Jamie: Well they do now, because you’ve fucking told her!
Ian: Yea, but she hasn't heard it yet.

When Last Train Home was really popular you didn’t want to be the band always remembered for that song. If you could choose now, is there a song you’d want to be remembered for?
Ian: Of ours? Or general (laughs). No we’ve done some good songs, but I don’t think we’ve written “the one fucking song” yet. Like, Can’t catch tomorrow I like, I can stand by that.
Jamie: If we had written God gave Rock’nRoll to you, then…I wouldn’t mind that, that’d be amazing
Ian: Or…fuck I dunno there’s so many…
Jamie: Oh come on, there’s the Bill and Ted saved the world song, you can’t fucking…it saved the world. (laughs)
Ian: Kiss saved the world.

You guys took care of all the artwork for…
Jamie: Ian likes to take all the credit for it.
Ian: No, I don’t take all the credit, we both have degrees in art, let’s put that out. I do graphic design, Jamie does fine art, so it’s a collaboration. We’ve gotta start a company, an art company.
Jamie: I’d be an internationally renounced artist and Ian works as….
Ian: I did stuff for channel four, that’s international.
Jamie: You did stuff for channel four which I was on, they were like celebrating me on channel 4!
Ian: Yea, but only once.

Do you still insist on taking care of every art for the band yourselves?
Ian: Yeah, we do everything ourselves. All our own merch, all our own album covers, website, everything is all us. Everything. What’s the point in giving it away? It’s like, if you spend that much time on the music, why would you want someone else to design how it looks?
Jamie: Design is fucking rad. And art, it’s really cool
Ian: You got the audio aesthetic down so you need the visual aesthetic to pull it together. If we could shoot our own videos, we would.

What’s stopping you?
Ian: Actually you know what, the one video that we were left to do our own idea for, and nobody bothered us, was the last one, and probably the best. All the other bullshit ones was like the record label getting involved.

So you don’t like any of your previous videos?
Ian: No. The only video I kind of like is Burn, burn, cuz we kinda got left to our own devices there as well. But what you’ll find, is any video that we had a say in is good, and any video the record company had a say in is complete shit.
Jamie: In our opinion of course.
Ian: It’s not an opinion, it’s fucked!
Jamie: (laughs) It is not fucked! I personally liked the Hypocrisy video.
Ian: No, because it’s not what it should’ve been, it should’ve been dark.
Jamie: It’s still good. It’s put in a perspective of our band, which is more accurate than any of the other videos we’ve ever done.
Ian: I disagree.
Jamie: We’re fucking jokers, funny guys…
Ian: I think Can’t catch tomorrow did it much better with a bit of class. Messing around, laughing…
Jamie: Class smash, we got no class.
Ian: I have, speak for yourself.

Well, I thought it was a good video...
Jamie: Thank you.
...It just didn’t fit the song.
Ian: Yea, Thank you!
Jamie: Well, that was the point!
Ian: No, it wasn’t the point.
Jamie: It wasn’t meant to be dark as in really horribly….
Ian: Do you know what it was? It was meant to be kinda dark and cooky like Willy Wonka. But it wasn’t. It was like a fucking rainbow. Not a chocolate factory. That’s what I wanted to do. Thing is, because we can’t direct our own videos, we don’t have the technical abilities. We got to kind of rely on directors ideas, and directors are fucking bollocks. But what we had, we got a friend who directs videos, so he can be our ideas, and that’s what we did on the last one.
Jamie: And other times, we just don’t have the money. Like we (the band) don’t have the money, we gotta borrow the money to do the videos. And when you’re borrowing money from whoever, then they’re gonna go like, well, what are you spending this on again?
Ian: Yea, and then they have opinion, they’re like “Oh, well since we’re paying for most of this video, I’d like to see some skateboarders. And we’re like “no”, and it’s like, you know what, fuck it then…
(Someone comes in with a coffee for Jamie)
Ian: (pouting) Well, that’s just Jamie on his fucking throne.

You also cover a lot of pop songs for your shows, is there anything new we can look forward to?
Ian: We were doing the Jam recently, Going Underground. But nobody knows it out here, so we don’t do it. We played it in Belgium and the crowd was like “ah…dunno this one.” But yea, we will actually. Not full songs but just little bits.
Jamie: We gonna do that Good Charlotte one tonight?

You’ve been on tour and in a band with each other for ages (Jamie: Too long) What annoys you most about the other band members?
Jamie: The fact that they’re alive.
Ian: Yea, their being. (laughter)
Jamie: That they can talk and think.
Ian: The fact that they have opinions. It would be much better if nobody else had an opinion, it would be like cool, do whatever, and it was all………me. We’d be the biggest band in the world. (laughs) Without five people holding me back (laughter)

Jamie: This is the best part about being on tour. That we laugh so much. I mean, nobody sees us laugh. Everybody thinks that we’re this super serious, you know, we pout in the videos, pout in the fucking photographs, but we laugh so much. All the time.
Ian: The laughter bus.
Jamie: It is, even when things are going dramatically wrong we laugh harder than we’ve ever laughed.

Do you guys have any antics before you go onstage?
Ian: (thinks) No…We’re too hard for that.
Jamie: I rip up a lamb and sacrifice it.
Ian: He rips of a lamb in his bare hands and washes himself in the blood and then he brings in a pack of wolf dogs…
…I heard for example that Lee would not go onstage before he had Starbucks coffee?
Ian: He probably wouldn’t do anything before he had Starbucks coffee. He wakes up, and then he goes and finds it, wherever we are. Even if he has to get a cab for it.
Ian&Jamie: He’s not addicted tho!
Ian: He just likes to say (Laughs)

Any bands you’d like to tour with?
Ian: I don’t really care. I’ll tour with anybody.
Jamie: If we could go back in time in the 80es, you know that may be fun but the rest
Ian: Yea, I mean, there’s a lot of older band but I don’t really care I’ll tour with anyone.
Jamie: Other bands are cool, but this is already the favourite band you want to be in…
Ian: And it’s good to help your local scene out. Like The Blackout, The New 1920, and they’re good bands

What are the plans for next year apart from the new album?
Ian: Uhm, yea, the new album (laughs) No, basically while we’re touring we’re gonna be recording and writing, and we’re gonna do a lot of festivals as well. We’re gonna do as many as we can, hopefully Rock am Ring, Rock im Park, Hurricane….Hurricane’s heavier though right? Maybe we won’t do that one then. We wanna do em all. And then hopefully we’ll have a new record in September, and I’m really excited for it.

30 Seconds to Mars

2007-01-30T09:23:36Z

Who: 30 Seconds to Mars
Supports: Napoleon
When: 29.01.07
Where: Live Music Hall, Cologne

Whew. I am very very impressed. Amazing live band, and way more fan-friendly than I would've expected.
During the concert they announced they'd do a signing for everyone who stayed inside, which were like, 300 people at least, and they actually took time for everyone.
But, I'm not here to talk about how amazing they acted, but to post pictures obviously^^ First time I was able to use my Canon Eos at a concert, so the pictures didn't turn out as well as they could've but better than I expected seeing how I was scared of screwing up completely...

So there we go, just a few samples, the rest will be up when I get the time to resize o.O

Hawthorne Heights (+District & Zox)

2006-08-30T19:33:53Z

Who: Hawthorne Heights
Supports: District, Zox
When: 20.08.06
Where: Prime Club, Cologne

District:

Zox:

Hawthorne Heights:

All American Rejects

2006-08-06T22:24:34Z

Who: All American Rejects
When: 06.06.06
Where: Prime Club, Cologne

perfectskylines @ 2006-07-31T16:11:00

2006-07-31T14:19:05Z

Who: My Chemical Romance
When: 30.08.05
Where: Zeche, Bochum

(MCR Cologne, January )

perfectskylines @ 2006-07-31T15:25:00

2006-07-31T13:31:53Z

Who: My Chemical Romance
When: 31.01.2005
Where: Prime Club, Cologne

(MCR August, Bochum)

Lostprophets

2006-07-15T23:30:31Z

Who: Lostprophets
When: 08.07.2006
Where: Brixton Academy, London

I still can't stop laughing at this picture >.<

(Photos Part 2)

(The Blackout )

perfectskylines @ 2006-07-16T00:44:00

2006-07-15T22:56:50Z

Who: Lostprophets
When: 08.07.2006
Where: Brixton Academy, London

Beware, loads and loads of pictures.

Ian with Men, Women and Children:

Lostprophets:

(Photos Part 1)

(The Blackout )

The Blackout

2006-07-15T09:14:51Z

Who: The Blackout (as support for Lostprophets)
When: 08.07.2006
Where: Brixton Academy, London

Fall Out Boy

2006-07-03T22:55:11Z

Who: Fall Out Boy
When: 03.02.06
Where: Kantine, Cologne

Panic! At the Disco

2006-06-24T20:06:45Z

Who: Panic! At the Disco
When: 05.04.06
Where: Bürgerhaus Stollwerk Cologne, Germany

Avenged Sevenfold Part 1

2006-06-24T00:21:00Z

Who: Avenged Sevenfold
When: 05.03.06
Where: Prime Club, Cologne, Germany

Taking Back Sunday Part two

2006-06-20T23:08:46Z

Who: Taking Back Sunday
When: 30.05.06
Where: Live Music Hall, Cologne, Germany

Taking Back Sunday

2006-06-20T22:38:35Z

Who: Taking Back Sunday
When: 30.05.06
Where: Live Music Hall, Cologne, Germany

(Photos Part 2)