Skid Row - Live at The O2 Forum Kentish Town
ZP Theart, Skid Row live in concert at The O2 Forum Kentish Town, January 2019
© Copyright Stewart Marsden
It’s not often you get an email out of the blue asking if you want to photograph one of your favourite bands from your youth, but when it does happen you don’t say no.
A Walkman in the maths block
I first heard Skid Row in the early nineties. I was in the sixth form, and my friend Jamie had Slave to the Grind on his Walkman. It was brand new. At lunchtime, in the maths block, he handed me the headphones and played me “In a Darkened Room”.
It was epic. I loved it instantly.
Nearly thirty years later, on 26 January 2019, I was standing in the photo pit at the O2 Forum Kentish Town, waiting for them to come on.
Saying hello at the back door
Before the show I was out by the venue’s back door with a couple of other photographers, having a beer and a smoke, when the band turned up. I got to shake Dave “The Snake” Sabo’s hand and say hello to each of them as they walked in. Not a bad way to start the night.
In the pit
Gig photographers are a friendly lot, and I made a few new friends in the pit that night. One of them was fairly new to shooting concerts, so I talked him through setting up his camera to nail the exposure under stage lights, and what to do with the files in Lightroom afterwards.
The lighting was dynamic and the crowd was going nuts. It felt awesome to finally shoot them.
Flying beer and a kit lens
I shot the night on my Pentax K-5 with the 18–55mm WR, the weather-sealed kit lens. I picked it because it was flying beer proof. It isn’t expensive glass. If you know your exposure, you don’t need it to be.
The support act I’d never heard of: H.E.A.T
Before that night I’d never heard of H.E.A.T, one of the support bands. Then I heard their singer, Erik Grönwall, and their music, and I’ve been a big fan ever since.
The story has a footnote I couldn’t have guessed. In 2022 Skid Row needed a new frontman, and they chose Erik Grönwall. He sang with them until 2024. So the singer of the support act I discovered that night went on to front the band I’d come to see.
