Release The Crowd

© Nic Bezzina

Spanning five years, five countries, and nine unique music festivals. This project turns the camera away from the bands and captures the emotion of the crowd, that amorphous, vibrating creature with a thousand faces. Revealing both the intensity that comes with letting go, as well as the close communities inside which fans can truly be themselves.

Music and society have always been intimately related. When they both come together, it becomes a rite of passage for many people and just one day can create memories that will last long after the stages are dismantled and the bands move on. Live music and festivals are powerful at the individual level because it can induce multiple responses that are physiological, kinetic, emotional, cognitive, and behavioural – sometimes all at once. Few other stimuli have the power to affect such a wide range of human functions.

With all of my projects, I like to consider them from the future. How will people respond to them 30 years from now, or even longer? It becomes an anthropological study on a scene, on a culture, on humanity in a way.

The festivals captured include: Wacken (Germany) Download (UK) Sonisphere (UK) Bloodstock (UK) Hellfest (France) Primavera Music (Spain) Big Day Out (AU) Soundwave (AU)

click to view the complete set of images in the archive

Text: by Nic Bezzina and Toby McCasker, Vice Journalist
Photographs: approx. 80 in tri-tone black and white
Pages: 140
Size: approx. 27.2 x 22.5 cm
Publication date: October 2016
Limited Edition: 2,000 copies