Capturing an Ego Death

On devotion, heat, and the 15 years between the back row and the photo pit.

I’m penning this in Dublin airport: heavy-eyed, lead-limbed, a little rattle in my throat, surrounded by various pieces of my luggage that I can’t wait to offload. But every other facet of me feels lighter.

Fizzing and sparking a little, an adrenaline hangover – residual feeling from the tight hugs I shared with countless friends, static charge self-generated from trekking, bouncing, dancing. But I’m on my way home. My nervous system spinning from a great height like a helicopter seed. With aims to settle back on the ground, but how?

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June was one big, climbing heatwave, and every venue seemed to run hotter than the last – I criss-crossed six cities to watch Hayley Williams & her band play the best album of 2025 (to ME!), ‘Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party’, in full. I relish the arrhythmia of constantly moving – scenery changing, rifling through tickets and passes - a novel, irregular pace. The Gaga “bus, club, another club” clip loops relentlessly in my brain as I hop from plane, to hotel, to car, to venue, to bus, to train.

City to city, the through-line is chromatic. This era runs yellow: an unabashed honey, teetering on gold. The album artwork itself, like a bolt of lightning against cloud – a thin, yellow frame around Hayley’s face, all monochrome – as sharp a contrast as you could ask for. Ego yellow is in the hair, hearts, doodles and decor of all those who’ve let it into their lives in the last year. You see it at the shows in droves, from dots of something sunny, to fully-fledged, top-to-toe mango. A whole ecosystem lives in one shade. To build a visual world so gorgeously, acerbically citric – recognisable at a glance – is a common effort of Hayley, her creative team, and the community who crowdsurf this album into a second life.

Each show is a sweat-bath. There’s a collective push + pull between giving in to the heat and grappling with it – a swathe of tiny handheld fans working overtime. Leaving the night soaked is actually a badge of honour, a souvenir from sweating out the toxins. Every post-show pull-in for embrace is accompanied by a “sorry, I’m gross”, but we’ve all ridden the same wave - we all get it. These shows are a ritual: shoulder to shoulder, surrendering space, melting into the music. We’re losing ourselves, forgetting the messy facets that live on the outside of this hot, hot room – thousands are shedding a skin tonight.

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I peel it all back, think about being 13. Hardly uncomplicated, but still, a lot simpler. Live music was pretty much a foreign country to me at that age, but I knew it was something I wanted to be a part of. Back when going to see a band in a big venue was £25(!) a ticket, half of my class were set to see Paramore in our local arena, which honestly, has always felt like a cavern of thin sheet-metal held together with elastic bands and Blutac. It’s a bit crap. But a few pivotal shows have been experienced in there, so it’s hard to have any real disdain for the place.

In a tweenage daydream, I had visions of myself standing outside the arena, in line for the gig – looking the cool girl - maybe in all-black, probably with brightly-dyed, backcombed hair. I can’t remember how I did turn up, but definitely no colourful hair (…yet). My Dad brought me, and we sat at the very, very back. Still, Paramore blew my mind. They tore the tin roof off. I couldn’t wrap my tiny mind around the sheer energy, or the punch they packed. We wander back to the car - me, full of beans, awestruck - yammering and raving at speed, circling my Dad as we walk. That was the best thing I’ve ever seen. Can I keep this feeling alive?

I took a handful of 4-megapixel photos on a little digicam, just to capture bits of the night, and triumphantly uploaded them into a Facebook album the next day – as was scripture in 2010. One photo, of Hayley enshrined by spotlights, is captioned: “I AM SO PROUD OF THIS PHOTO. <3 Hayley Williams - Paramore - 18/11/10”

The quality is pretty poor, but it’s a photo that memorialises a fire being lit - something clicking into place like a shutter. That night was the first tread of a desire path, carved out by a teenager who had no idea where it would lead.

Fifteen years later: I’m confirmed to shoot Hayley’s first Glasgow show. I floated the idea by her team last summer, before I knew the tour even existed – and they graciously accepted. In the time between wielding my tiny Lumix and now: I studied photography, cycled through a hundred and one different cameras (mostly 35mm!), and in the last 6 years, started a publication to cover gigs professionally. Tonight is where it’s all been leading.

I gear up like it’s the event of a lifetime (well… isn’t it?) – hiring a Sony mirrorless camera, a real step-up from my slightly dated set-up. I collect it – plus lens – from some tucked away little unit in a Glaswegian industrial park. Unconventional, but needs must. I also try out a dual-camera harness for the first time, to accommodate my own Canon on my hip as a “b-camera”. My friends joke I look like a ninja, or an agent, in my stage blacks plus the chest harness, which kind of resembles some sort of security vest. It all feels very official.

When I collect my pass, I’m promptly handed a different one – a quick swap. “This one’s for the whole show”, she tells me. The whole show? Holy shit. Normally, the photographer’s permit is first 3 songs, then out the pit – standard press ruling. Unless you’re there on behalf of the artist, which… I guess that’s me tonight.

I’ve only ever worked an entire show once before, on the ask of AURORA’s team at her Royal Albert Hall show. It was incredible, but also tiring – there’s 5 floors to that beautiful, historic venue, and lifts are staff-only (gulp). You can imagine the physicality.

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I stand in front of the curtain-clad stage, bolting both cameras firmly into place on my new heavy-duty garment. Looking into the excited, crinkling eyes of my friends, scattered up and down the barrier, there’s a tangible and mutual love here that’s spurring me on. Hayley’s walk-on song, Björk’s ‘Army of Me’, reaches its final few bars and the room plunges into darkness. Let’s go.

The photo pit, at first, seems like it could swallow me up. It’s aswarm with people (security, other photogs), the heat is rising, I’m clambering through obstacles. My chest camera gets stuck in its hold a couple of times, fuck, like this isn’t time sensitive. I can feel the pressure. My friend Neelam later tells me she could see the sweat dripping down the side of my face.

The floor is a snake-pit of cables and cups of water, and for me, a spatially-challenged dyspraxic, eyes in the back of my head would be a blessing right now.

Then, the pit empties - the other photographers file out. It’s just me, Zachary Gray, and Brian O’Connor, who’s perched on one of the barrier steps, watching Hayley. Zachary is a tour de force – a fantastic film photographer – but also an effortlessly cool, stoic dude. To be sharing a pit with him and the co-founder of Good Dye Young, the very dye on my head, affirms what I’m doing right now. Where I am, what I’ve been trusted with.

I don’t know where I go for the next hour or so, but I become my job. I know the timings of this show inside out: each lighting cue, every swell, when the back curtain will bloom with projection – half a beat ahead, I just tune the rest out. Everything else dissolves – time, space, self – this is my vanishing point. Is this an ego death?

I traverse this ornate former cinema – snaking in and out of fire exits, up and down the stairs, zigzagging balcony rows, drowning in the swelter. Laboured breath. As I’m dashing up above the stage, aware of some eyes on me – I think, “whoa. I’m working for Hayley Williams right now”. It rushes through me like a flare – bright, brief, and I’m moving again.

The devout involvement of the hands and senses is all that’s left of me, deciding where I stand and fire. I course through a dense sea of people and use my eyes: faces are half-swallowed in shadow, perspiration glittering in the fug - a glaze on the mugs, so to speak. Gilded and glowing, the band are absorbed in the same broil. The backlight is molten around Hayley, all halation and haze. The confectionary grandeur of this venue, in its pastel, plasterwork pastiche makes for some great wide shots.

There’s a pocket of breath when the phone torches rise for ‘Blood Bros’, a slowing amidst the speed. I stand and soak it up. The communion of this moment is homemade, actually – courtesy of someone that handed out small, yellow squares before doors, and now the whole room is the right pigment.

Hayley burns so brightly onstage: her voice with more clarity than ever, sharply resolute and unafraid to reach the ceiling. EDAABP is such a rich, wide-open record, but live? It’s something else, a real intimate affair. She lights incense that drapes the pit in soft oud, snarls into her mic, headbangs into oblivion (her poor chiropractor). In quieter passages, Hayley sings an ode to Nashville’s ghost – mourns, dips her head, bares truths with her eyes closed – all while looking like we’re in her living room. Ferocity and warmth in good measure, but space for bluer hues too.

Nestling myself between stage-front speakers to get the shot, the live instrumentation is concussive – I feel it shake my ribs and thrum in my skull. Ear protection can’t save me now. The spill of sound is torrential, but I foster the sensation – this is part of work, it’s a package deal to feel every pulse of it. The live band, the Parafour, are accompanying her for this solo stretch. God, they are so good. Brian, Logan, and the Joeys: I watch their playing from two feet away – they’re impeccable. Kinetic, in the music – never still. I couldn’t imagine anyone else in their spots. The Scottish crowd roars for Hayley, and my friends at the front chant for me, causing a blush to run up my neck.

When the lights go back up, it’s as if I’m coming out of a trance – snapping back to where I left. I feel wired to the National Grid, totally abuzz. I’m back in my body, but I feel like I’ve un-selfed. I’m swamped with congratulations and questions as I leave, surrounded by familiar smiles, as well as relative strangers – who actually don’t feel that strange at all.

Opting for vibrant red & yellow hair has been a paper chain of funny and sweet reactions – for example, an elderly lady in Copenhagen remarked “STRAWBERRY!” with a direct point and a wide smile, as her daughter ushered her on – but I love it. I can’t imagine myself rocking any other colours. It’s also proven to be a bit of a signpost. Helpful when we get separated, my pals joke, and also a ‘tell’. Who else could that be but Eleanor?

I had a lot of “are you–“s this last month, which – after they witnessed about three in a row – had my friends in stitches. The internet is a powerful, terrifying vehicle for being ‘known’, isn’t it? A lot of great things are born from being able to connect so easily, and after weeks full of kindness and compliments on my work, who could argue? Interactions like those make you feel ten feet tall.

On the pavement after the Glasgow show, one friend smacks me with a line that nearly has me in tears: “that was for younger Eleanor!”… Phew… Yeah. She was the one pushing the buttons and pulling the levers tonight, somewhere in me, full of wonder – this IS for her. I just know she’d be proud.

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Two days before shooting Glasgow, I’m checking out of my hotel in Manchester. My poodly fringe – courtesy of the humidity – is stuffed into a docker hat. My friend Ilaria’s tour tee thrown on, I’m makeup-less but moisturised, tired - all ready to snooze on my 3 hour coach back home. While hauling my shamefully large, two-tonne suitcase up a short flight of marbled stairs (with no grace about it), I see a tiny blonde in my peripheral. Surely not. Locking eyes at exactly the same time, sure as shit, it’s Hayley.

Before I can even think, she jumps up to greet me and has pulled me into a hug - introducing me as Eleanor to her people as we shake hands. She tells me she loves seeing me at the shows - actually spotting me IN amongst it last night, and did I have a good time? We speak about just how airless the shows at the Academy have been - BRJ appears (“oh hi Brian!”) – seconding that they’re the hottest shows he’s ever played. I tell them they’re killing it. They say how easy I am to find in a crowd, and I joke they must make a game of it.

My legs, ever the comedians, start wobbling like I’m a Looney Tunes character at the top of a tall ladder. Noooooooo. Thank you to my body, insisting on making a fool of me. I start to wrap up, tell them it was good to see them, and head coachwards with a grin. I cross paths with Zachary on my way out, and hit him with the most Northern “y’alright?” I think I’ll ever spit out in my life. Girl. Should’ve added a “petal” on the end for good measure.

The surge of endorphins pushes me the big slog home, making the journey feel like just minutes. How did I meet Hayley Williams this morning, and now I’m pulling into SUNDERLAND bus station?!

Chappell was onto something when she wrote “I try to be the chill girl, but honestly, I’m not”. Everything I feel, I show, for better or worse – my severe lack of poker face wrecks any bluff I try to slide across the green.

I think it’s just testament to how important Hayley is to me – there’s a part of my (very) nervous system that makes it known. Said nervous system also reminds me “you cannot be the chill girl. Not today, not ever”. Me and my knocking knees need a stern word.

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Once I’m fully home and barely settled, I sit down to edit. It takes me days – solid days. It’s the curse of wanting everything I put out to be perfect. Colour grading til my eyes are sore. But then the shots reveal themselves, exactly as I saw them. A relentless amber colours my Lightroom library, Ego yellow bleeding into everything, tinting my brain at this point. From a hot, packed-out venue with an earbursting volume, to the quiet of my living room - thankful for the breeze coming in the window.

I get my favourites onto artboards and just stare. There’s a thrill in looking at something you made and knowing you did a good job. I almost can’t believe I captured these photos: finely detailed close-ups, the crowd, expansive and swarming, action shots, sharp portraits – this show, through my eyes. I am so proud of these photos.

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In Dublin, on the closing night of the Ego Death tour, Hayley walks out in a nude, sheer dress – one she’s sported before – but now, a dark red bloom rouges her left chest. A bleeding heart. I wince as I spot it. Her arms and legs are wrapped in bloodied bandages, too.

Shit, isn’t this exactly it? Devotion that bleeds through – deliberate, inescapable. It’s a real gut-punch. Hayley Williams does not know nonchalance.

That final show is an emotional one, in an Irish boxing stadium of all places, and ‘I Won’t Quit On You’ catches in my throat – hearing those guttural yells, watching her belt with purpose. The finality is weirdly tangible. For a bachelorette party, it feels funereal. So where better to cry? (and I do!)

Hayley named this record after her own ego dying, wore the wounds on closing night, then buried the era herself – without fanfare – in an Instagram post (“death to ego death”). For an album that wrestles so intensely with heartbreak, the live shows proved to be a comfort: cathartic, safe – a bit of respite. I hope she felt that too.

Bidding June goodbye is hard, considering the whirlwind it caught me in.

I circle back to the thought I had after my first Paramore show: “how can I keep this feeling alive?” – that question was easier at 13 when it was only about me. Now, it involves friends who flew in from France, from Singapore, from across the Atlantic – queueing for coffee, playing cards, tromping the concrete, getting stuck in airports. Throwing our bodies around at shows, singing until we lose our voices. So… how?

Act on it. Better yet, get amongst it. Take the tools and make things. Don’t even try to be normal about it.

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In the furnace that is Manchester Academy, Hayley sits at the piano and speaks to the audience with a great deal of gratitude - about showing up for live music, and being here tonight: “I hope you get what you need out of it”, she imparts. I couldn’t imagine needing anything more.