Rachel Spivey – Wedding (Present) Photographer

Contrary to public perception it’s not all show tunes and rockabilly at Rouge Towers and when I heard that my indiepop heroes – The Wedding Present – would be passing through Leamington I stuck my (brass)neck out and asked if I could photograph them.

They said yes.

So on Wednesday night I made the short trip over to The Assembly to take advantage of their fantastic backstage area, and in particular the super kitsch pink and chrome caravan that once belonged to Tammy Wynette.

I’ve done a fair few high stakes, big pressure jobs but shooting someone I have such admiration and affection for got me a bit giddy. (Not that you could tell from my cool and professional exterior.) The band were all charming and accommodating – I guess being photographed is just another day at the office for them, but it was a genuine thrill to fleetingly connect with frontman David Gedge through the camera lens.

The Wedding Present provided the soundtrack to my youthful angst and their marriage of furious guitars with David’s incisive, lovelorn lyrics has remained a constant in my life ever since I first saw them at the Redcar Bowl in 1988. Some years later when my boyfriend showed me footage of his college band’s version of My Favourite Dress I knew he was worth holding on to. I married him and he still occasionally sits in the kitchen strumming and singing his small repertoire of Weddoes songs.

I have seen the band live on a number of occasions, as both The Wedding Present and their sometime alter ego Cinerama, and once spent a gig in Leicester lounging at the back while being very pregnant with the twins. I never once thought I’d be hanging out with them in the campest caravan known to man.

After I’d got the lights set up backstage, myself and the aforementioned bag-carrying husband were invited into the soundcheck where I took a few cheeky candid snaps of the band running through a couple of numbers. I was that little indie chick again and this was like our own private gig. I’m surprised the shots are actually in focus.

This tour will take them all over the world performing their classic Bizarro album, with Leamington being their last gig in the UK, so once the shoot was done and dusted I dropped all the kit back at the studio so I could relax and just enjoy the gig.

I was quite taken with support band The Jet Age, which I think was largely due to how friendly they’d been backstage, but The Wedding Present were just ace onstage.

Such.

Brilliant.

Songs.

Now I know my blog readers are a cool and cultured bunch, but for the uninitiated I have done you a little Spotify playlist over here to introduce you to a handful of their songs and I’ll also sign off with this little clip.

Couldn’t agree with the sentiment more.

Merry Christmas people.

I hope you all get the kind of presents you like under your tree.

RS x

(PS. Follow David Gedge on Twitter @weddingpresent – he’ll thank you for it.)