Toots & The Maytals

Friday night legendary Reggae band Toots and the Maytals performed infront of a packed Brixton Academy. With support coming from Bitty McLean and frontman Toots Hibbert's daughter Leba Hibbert, who also accompanied the band as a backing singer. There was a wide variety of people in the crowd from fans of Toots and the Maytals from the 60s and 70s to the new generation of fans that they have seemingly picked up over the summer having played a number of festivals including Summer Sundae and Bestival. He also had one very well known fan in Rolling Stone Ronnie Wood, who joined the photographers in the pit from the start before joining Toots onstage for 1969 hit 'Monkey Man'. You can see the video here

A Month of Festivals

Over the last few weeks I've covered 3 festivals, Latitude, Camp Bestival and most recently The Big Chill. Latitude started well, Friday was hot and sunny and everyone was happy, however that didn't last and after a day of rain on Saturday people, including myself, were getting stuck in the muddy car parks, some people even deciding to abandon their cars for the night and jump on the shuttle bus to get home. Sunday was hot and sunny one minute, then dark and raining the next and that lasted all day. However, it didnt stop the likes of Ed Sheeran, Anna Calvi, The Hurts and headliners The National and Paolo Nutini from putting on strong sets on the huge main stage.

Other acts that performed across the weekend at Latitude included The Eels, My Morning Jacket, Chapel Club and KT Tunstall to name a few. You can see the full Gallery of photos HERE

Last weekend I headed to the family orientated Camp Bestival in the historic grounds of Lulworth Castle. Headline acts on the main stage were Blondie, Primal Scream and Mark Ronson, who performed a tribute to Amy Winehouse, bringing 'Valerie' writer and Zutons frontman Dave McCabe on stage with him at the start of his set to perform an acoustic version of the track she made famous. And it was one of my images from that opening song that got published in the Daily Star on Monday last week. The origional image is below

Other acts that performed over the weekend included Laura Marling, Ms Dynamite and kids comedy duo Dick n Dom.

The full Gallery of photos from the festival are HERE

Then this past weekend I travelled to Herefordshire for what I thought would be my favourite festival of the summer, however, there was a noticeable lack of atmosphere around the place and it seemed all effort from the organiser's had gone into securing the services of Kanye West for the Saturday headline slot. And with all three headline acts, Chemical Brothers, Kanye West and Rodrigo y Gabriela not giving the photographers much chance to get any decent shots, it was quite disappointing. Highlights of the weekend for me were Aloe Blacc, Jamie Woon, Dionne Bromfield and Janelle Monae.

After a real struggle to find any photos of Kanye West or Rodrigo y Gabriela, this was the best I could come up with...

There was a wide variety of acts over the weekend including Jessie J, Wapaint, Neneh Cherry and Steel Pulse to name just a few. You can see the full Gallery of images HERE

That's the last of the festivals for me this summer, so its now back to the sweaty clubs and indoor venues for me!!