Still Crazy ... after all these years!

Rare and unseen gig photography, featuring a roll call of stars from the 1970s to the present day

Launch event: Friday 8th January 7pm to 9pm

A new exhibition of concert photography at Mirfield’s Creative Arts Hub captures rock royalty in its prime! Celebrating artists as diverse as Pulp, David Bowie, the Sex Pistols, Wham!, Status Quo and The Prodigy, the exhibition will showcase a veritable who’s who of the rock music scene over the past five decades. Photographed at gigs and festivals by photographers Mark Bickerdike and Ian Clegg Walsh, these rare and unseen images will prove fascinating to anyone with even a passing interest in music. This selling exhibition offers visitors the chance to acquire their very own snapshot of history, and launches on Friday 8th January with an opportunity to meet the photographers and talk to them about their work.

Curated by artist Kay Dawson, the exhibition will bring the work of two local photographers together. Mark Bickerdike and Ian Clegg Walsh talk below about how they got started, their drive and energy, and the buzz of getting that perfect shot:

Mark Bickerdike:
“One of my first memories of music was as a six year old excitedly queueing in WH Smiths in Dewsbury to buy my first single, Long Haired Lover from Liverpool by Jimmy Osmond. OK so it’s not going to make the list of the top 100 singles of all time, but it was the start of a lifelong love (some might say obsession) with music.”
“My love of photography took a little while longer to develop, but jump forward another 12 years to Friday December 14th 1984 and I’m at The Queens Hall in Leeds desperately trying to hid my Pentax ME Super under my coat in a bid to snap a few pictures of 80’s superstars Wham. I’m not sure this was my first attempt at concert photography, but it was certainly the first where I got an even remotely usable image, and one which led to a longtime passion for live music photography.”
“For most of my career I was lucky enough to work as a staff photographer on the Yorkshire Evening Post and Yorkshire Post in Leeds which gave me the chance to photograph some of the biggest acts around.
From Michael Jackson’s two concerts at Roundhay Park (including the chance to photograph him in his dressing room), to Simple Minds, David Bowie, Metallica and Foo Fighters - they have all been on the other end of my lens. I got to capture the last night of the legendary Leeds music venue The Duchess of York with Chumbawamba, and the first act on stage at the long awaited Leeds Arena: Bruce Springsteen. The local music scene continues to thrive and now I’m just as likely to be capturing images of local hopefuls at pub gigs as I am to be shooting global megastars at Leeds Arena.”

Ian Clegg Walsh:
“My interest in photography sort of happened at the same time as my interest in rock music. There were a few wasted rolls of film initially as I learned to estimate exposures (in my head) for auto exposures were not universal then. A 200mm telephoto lens changed my world then!”
“This was a paying hobby more than anything. Apart from the one night when I was paid an incredible amount of money by an American Wings / Paul McCartney fan, there was never any real commercial slant. I just went to see the bands I enjoyed. I made my own colour prints at home in dishes with unknown health risks, and then dried the prints all over the house to my mother’s disdain. Selling the prints to fans was fun for a time.”
“I was briefly a portrait photographer prior to this, and many of my shots resemble portraits, with not that much creativity with the lighting and the postures, but slow film was a bit of a limitation. You kind of had to choose between good static shots, or lousy blurred grainy action shots. I detested flash, and very rarely used one. Interestingly I once shot Elton John with a flash exposure, but the flash was on someone else’s camera. This coincidence only happened once in twenty years and countless rolls of film.”
“The work I did then will look wonderful in a gallery setting. The colours are intense and the backgrounds are black and floodlit. They are of an era where not that much merchandising existed. When normal folks were having a few bottles of Newky Brown and enjoying the gig, I was fretting about getting spotted by security. Eventually I lost interest and moved on to other things.”
“Now, instead of documenting other people’s art I am making some of my own, but I treasure this opportunity to provide some of the stills for ‘Still Crazy’.”

Also featured in the exhibition will be a slideshow of archive material provided by Dave Siviour and Steve Riding, courtesy of the University of Leeds.

The Hub gallery is open Wednesday 10am to 5pm, Thursday 10am to 8pm, Friday 10am to 5pm, and Saturday 10am to 3pm. Entry is free, for further details contact mark@creativeartshub.org.uk, or ring 01924 492775.
We regret that there is no wheelchair access to Creative Arts Hub.

Image Inventory

These are the photographs and artists which will be included in the exhibition, with concert dates:

By Ian Clegg Walsh:
LOU REED at Sheffield City Hall 1973
COCKNEY REBEL at Leeds Town Hall 1973
QUEEN at Leeds Town Hall 1973
YES at Sheffield City Hall 1973
NAZARETH at Leeds Town Hall 1973
FAMILY at Bradford University 1973
ELTON JOHN at Sheffield City Hall 1973
T-REX at Sheffield City Hall 1973
DAVID BOWIE at Bradford St.George's Hall 1973
NEW YORK DOLLS at Leeds University 1973
MOTT THE HOOPLE at Leeds Town Hall 1973
FREDDIE MERCURY OF QUEEN at Bradford St. George's Hall 1974
DEEP PURPLE at Sheffield City Hall 1974
MICK RONSON at Sheffield City Hall 1974
STEELEYE SPAN at Leeds Town Hall at 1974
URIAH HEEP at Sheffield City Hall 1974
SENSATIONAL ALEX HARVEY BAND at Leeds Town Hall 1974
LYNYRD SKYNYRD at Leeds Town Hall 1974
DANA GILLESPIE at Leeds University 1974
BE BOP DELUXE at Leeds University 1974
BILL NELSON (BE BOP DELUXE) at Leeds University 1974
HEAVY METAL KIDS at Leeds Town Hall 1974
BAD COMPANY at Leeds Town Hall 1974
STATUS QUO at Leeds University 1974
WISHBONE ASH at Leeds University 1974
CURVED AIR at Leeds Town Hall 1975
THE DAMNED at Leeds Polytechnic 1976
DOCTOR FEELGOOD at Manchester Palace Theatre 1976
THIN LIZZY at Bradford St.George's Hall 1976
LITTLE FEAT at Manchester Palace Theatre 1976
SEX PISTOLS at Leeds Polytechnic 1976
STRANGLERS at Leeds Queens Hall 1977
PETER GABRIEL at Bradford St. George's Hall 1977
THE SAINTS at Leeds Queens Hall 1977
DAVID BOWIE at Stafford Bingley Hall 1977
TELEVISION at Sheffield City Hall 1979
ATHLETICO SPIZZ at Leeds Queens Hall 1979
BOOMTOWN RATS at Bradford St.George's Hall 1982
THE FALL at Leeds Polytechnic 1984
JOHNNY MATTHIS at Manchester Arena 2011

By Mark Bickerdike:
WHAM at Queens Hall, Leeds, December 1984
HAPPY MONDAYS at Elland Road, Leeds, June 1991
VEGAS in Leeds March 1993
MICHAEL STIPE of REM at Huddersfield July 1995
Dusk falls at Heineken Festival, Leeds, July 1995
THE PRODIGY at V97 Festival, Leeds, August 1997
DAVID BOWIE at Town and Country Club, Leeds, August 1997
CHUMBAWAMBA at Duchess of York, Leeds, March 2000
MORRISSEY at Leeds Town Hall April 2006
PUBLIC IMAGE LTD at O2 Academy, Leeds, December 2009
ELI PAPERBOY REED at Brudenell Social Club, Leeds, August 2011
MUSE at Leeds Festival August 2011
MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE at Leeds Festival August 2011
THE STROKES at Leeds Festival August 2011
SEASICK STEVE at Leeds Festival August 2011
PULP at Leeds Festival August 2011
FOO FIGHTERS at Leeds Festival August 2012
GREEN DAY at Leeds Festival August 2012
PARAMORE at Leeds Festival August 2012
THE CURE at Leeds Festival August 2012
ODD FUTURE at Leeds Festival August 2012
KASABIAN at Leeds Festival August 2012
ALL TIME LOW at Leeds Festival August 2012
FLORENCE AND THE MACHINE at Leeds Festival August 2012
BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN at Leeds Arena July 2013
BIFFY CLYRO at Leeds Festival August 2013
Mudslide at Leeds Festival August 2013
Wet festival fans at Leeds Festival August 2013
OLLIE SYKES gets mobbed at Leeds Festival August 2013
KAISER CHIEFS at Leeds Arena September 2013
TREASON KINGS at The Wardrobe, Leeds, July 2015
Banana fans at Leeds Festival August 2015
METALLICA at Leeds Festival August 2015
SLAVES at Leeds Festival August 2015
MUMFORD AND SONS at Leeds Festival August 2015
Dry festival fans at Leeds Festival 2015

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