Last night I ventured to Sheffield to check out Rise Against. It was my first time at the O2 Academy – despite smelling worse than Rock City when I arrived, it was pretty good in terms of photography. It’s quite well lit and security were pretty good, although there is a policy of throwing out crowd surfers the second their feet hit the ground, which seems a little harsh.

Flobots and Anti-flag were the supports – I was a bit disappointed that everyone was a bit preachy in-between songs. On the other hand, these bands have always claimed to have a message, so I might just be getting old and cynical! Either way, all the messages were pretty positive, so it’s hard to be too critical. Both bands were very active, making them both difficult to photograph. For those of you who are interested, I’m considering swapping my Sigma 24mm f1.8 for a Canon 35mm f2.0 – the Sigma is a cracking lense, but just too wide on the 5D.

Rise Against were very good, and the inclusion of an acoustic version of Swing Life Away in the encore was a real highlight. They also did a version of Hero of War, a song I can’t stand on the album, but I thought it worked quite well live (if you ignore the cringeworthy lyrics). Disappointingly, they didn’t play Paper Wings – I thought it was being saved for the last song of the encore, but forgot about The Sufferer and the Witness. To be fair, it was a good final track, even if it did automatically cause the superimposition of a Guitar Hero 3 fret onto my vision…