The Idiot Rate

   September 30, 2025

The Idiot Rate @ Academy 3, Manchester, 25th June 2006.

A massively over-exposed long exposure mixed with a snap zoom and an explosion of stage lights, leaving only a vague impression of what is actually there. It starts with a close-up of the head and upper body of a man with shoulder-length hair and wearing a dark t-shirt with a white text logo. His face and most of the background are blown out, massively over-exposed, along with the logo on the t-shirt, while dark areas of the image (his hair, t-shirt, and part of the ceiling behind him) are a light blue. A snap zoom out has a full length view of him, slightly hunched over, playing a guitar. Again, all details have been lost, blown out by the exposure, only blue shadows remaining.A man on stage, with short dark hair, wearing a black t-shirt with an indistinct white logo and a blue pair of jeans, playing a white bass guitar. A camera flash has frozen him in place, whileca long exposure combined either flashing stage lights and his movement have created purple secondary images around his head and torso. Racks of amplifiers and speakers can be seen in the background, against black walls.Close-up of a man with shoulder-length wavy brown hair, wearing a blue t-shirt with a white logo and a blue pair of jeans, playing a black electric guitar whikle facing to the right. A long exposure combined with slight camera movements have created purple secondary images, his arms and body appearing almost ghost-like. In the background, a man can be seen playing on a drum kit in the bottom right of the image, with black walls and ceiling filling the rest of the frame.A man with short dark hair and beard, wearing a white shirt with broad red and blue vertical stripes over a grey t-shirt, and a blue pair of jeans, playing a red electric guitar, and screaming into a microphone on a stand in front of him. A long exposure, combined with his movement and the stage lights has resulted in some blurring of the image, with explosions of white light around him, reflecting off his guitar and face.

The Idiot Rate @ Bar Academy, Islington, 23rd January 2007.

A rather colourful long exposure shot with a snap zoom of a man playing a guitar and singing into a microphone. One of the stage lights has washed out all details of his face, and both he and the microphone on it's stand appear to be shrinking and vanishing in to the middle of the frame, surrounded by green smears of light. Red walls and ceiling fill the rest of the frame.