Frank Turner concert photos [Durham NC and London Concert Photography]

Durham Chapel Hill Raleigh NC London Concert Photos

Strummerville is a charity organization, named for Joe Strummer of the Clash, set to help support new music. Its a great organization that promotes up and coming bands. Each spring they have the Strummerville spring sessions. This year it was particularly special because Frank Turner decided to headline the event, and play his 1000th show. That’s no typo. One Thousand live gigs. That’s a lot of gigs, and in a relatively short span of time. Frank is one of he hardest working musicians around, or at least seems that way. He’s constantly touring, giging, traveling, writing.

Strummerville was scheduled for 8pm trough til 6am, in a car park out in Shorditch, east London. Sort of like an all night rave. Frank Turner was scheuled to hit the stage at about 11:00pm. The trick was to actually find this place. I did an internet search like any normal person, got directions from Google Maps. Headed off to make my way there.

Mistake #1, I got off the bus at the wrong bus stop (apparently).

Mistake #2, I did not bring my London A to Z mapbook. Didn’t occur to me, and instead had some worthless googlemap print outs.

Mistake #3-#5, I asked random shopkeepers for directions and listened to their advice.

It was looking hopeless, when I asked a young guy to help. He seemed to really know his way, and walked me to the corner so he could give me better directions. That’s when I asked “are you busy right now? Why dont you walk me all the way there so I dont get lost” and he kindly did. So, my hero, Chris, gave me a tour of Shoreditch, and as we turned up and down alleyways, we finally came to the car park. We could hear the music, but it was 11pm. I was able to get Chris into the sold out event as my guest and I went to catch a few images of Frank Turner at the opeing of his set. And what a set it was. The whole place exploded into singalongs. It was fantastic. Beyond fantastic. It seemed every person there knew ever word of every song. I can only imagine how incredible that would feel as a performer, having that energy blasting back at you. Frank and the band seemed to be in fine form and played a long set. I can’t for the life of me remember the set list. I was fortunate enough to run into a couple friends and get a chance to chat. I made some new friends, and had another fun filled night in London.

So we (my friend and I) decide to head out and find our way back to the flat in Kensington about 3:30am. We did find the correct bus stop (after wandering for a bit) and had a 25 minute wait until the next bus. That was perfect, becase we also realized we were incredibly hungry. What’s open at 3:40am? Not a whole lot. We happen to find a little Syrian restaurant that served take-away. I’ve never had Syrian food before and had no idea what to order, so I asked someone who was waiting in line what they recommended. OMG, this food was A.MAZ.ING. I have no idea what I actually ate, or where this place was, but I dream of the food. So, with food in hand, we catch our bus and are home and in bed by 4:30am.