Every year I get the chance to photograph a stack load of bands. It's hard work but it can also be great way to discover new music. Most of the time I'll be familiar with the band, especially the headliners, but every now and again a band I haven't heard of blows me away.

This special blog post celebrates those bands. These are the artists that I remember the most from 2015 either through their music, stage presence or combination of both!

First up in my list is The Worried Men who were supporting Jefferson Starship at the Exeter Phoenix back in February. Lead singer Jamie really owned the stage and put on a great show! See my blog post of the gig here.

Jumping forward to June and I was back at the Exeter Phoenix to shoot The Sherpas. Cornish band Auction for the Promise Club were first on and their music really hit a note with me (excuse the pun!). You can also see my blog post of the gig here.

Covering festivals is a lot of work but when I shot Moriaty at Glas-Denbury in July I was blown away by the shear energy of the band. Talk about putting on a show! You can see lots more images from this festival by clicking here.

About a week later I was at another festival, Chagstock. You can see all my images from Chagstock here, but the standout act for me was Gaz Brookfield. I loved the lyrics of his songs and as soon as I got home picked up his live album.

Finally, and more recently, I saw Beardyman perform at the Exeter Phoenix in November. To say that Beardyman is a talent would be an understatement. His ability to mix up comedy with all sorts of music genres was just a pleasure to experience. You can see my blog post of the gig here.

If 2015 was anything to go by, 2016 should be a bumper year of discovering new music!

Finally, be sure to check out My Top 10 Images of 2015 blog post.

I've had the pleasure of photographing musicians from many genres of music, but when I went to the Exeter Phoenix last Thursday night to see Beardyman, I saw one man cover everything from jungle to death metal! The show put on by Beardyman was hugely entertaining (musically and comedically) and the crowd were loving it. There were plenty of funny moments for Steve from MusicMuso to write about, so keep an eye out on the MusicMuso website for a quality review very soon.

But my job isn't really to write about how good the gig was but to show you how good it was. So here it goes….

I hope you enjoyed these shots, and I'll be back on The Unplugged Blog again very shortly with images from both From The Jam and The Fratellis gigs, so keep your eyes open here and over on Twitter.

On a Technical Note

I've finally just taken delivery of a new Nikon AF-S Nikkor 24–70mm f/2.8E ED VR lens. It's a quality bit of glass and I can't wait to really put it through its paces. It had a nice warm up job for Beardyman, but the next two gigs will see how it really performs. I'll report back soon.

See you next time!