28.6.23 Leftover(s)/Neuroplacid @ The Windmill, Brixton

The question is, have you or haven’t you brained yourself on the Windmill pole? If you don’t understand the question, you sort of haven’t really lived.

I finally made it to The Windmill. I’d been meaning to go for a long time. Niamh was always talking about it, but I lived far away. Leftover(s) was playing that night, so I went. I got there for doors, which turned out to be the middle of soundcheck. I was the only one there who wasn’t playing. Niamh, Tash, Jude, and Francis all seemed absolutely exhausted and were sort of pouring themselves into seats in the smoking area. They were hanging out with a very energetic fella with bright red hair who was bopping about, cracking jokes. Everyone else was sort of ignoring him and I thought, aw, poor guy. Must not be very popular. Later that evening, that guy went on stage and blew the lid off the club. I thought I was seeing the future. It was just him and his mate rapping with a backing track, but he was so freakishly talented, I felt like I was in a stadium. That guy was Ollie, aka Neuroplacid.

Niamh doing her makeup before the gig

Ollie hanging around the smoking area

Jude

Tash

I was developing a habit of just putting my camera in people’s faces so as not to have to ask questions. It’s something you can do in a room full of performers and theatrical people. Admittedly, I had no idea what to say to a bunch of bohemians I had just met. Not that I felt that I was inherently different from them, I just had no idea what they were genuinely like as individuals and what we might actually have in common. The smoking area of a rock club, I was learning, is a profoundly performative space. It’s where people go to present a version of themselves as theater. I don’t mean this in any sort of negative or critical way. I personally feel that there’s something beautiful about this, it’s something that everyone should try at least once before they die. But living theater is not a sustainable way of life.

Francis

Everybody at The Windmill looked like they were in a movie. What was more, they acted like they were in a movie. I took a lot of photos that night, I couldn’t help myself. Real life is comparatively bland.

The sound engineer, Otis, was a really cool guy. I asked him if he was a musician. He said yes, he was the drummer in a band called Automotion. I said that I was sorry, I didn’t know them. When were they playing next? On July 4th at The George. I said I’d be there. He seemed a little surprised. “Just like that?” was sort of the subtext. Well, just like that.

Neuroplacid at The Windmill

My first time meeting Rowan Clark. I was introduced to him as Niamh’s producer. He was an incredibly mysterious person, almost reminded me of some kind of glam rock gumshoe from a revisionist film noir. At a certain point he looked up at me wryly and just said, “you’re photographing me, aren’t you?” And when I said yes, he just went back to smoking. What an excellent human being Rowan is.

I did not meet Sam Sinclair that night, but it sort of feels like I did because I took these photos of him and he looked directly into the camera in each of them. I had no idea who he was, I was using him to frame Tash. I got a real kick out of how snappily he was dressed.

Tash has this good luck frog stuffed animal that she puts on her mic stand when she plays.

Here she is showing it off.