As Oasis took to the stage, Karen McBride put her camera away
16:58, 14 Mar 2026
Karen McBride took the iconic photo of Ian Brown and Liam Gallagher with the late Manchester music legend Alfonso ‘Fonzo’ Buller(Image: Karen McBride)
When Karen McBride was first asked to photograph Robbie Williams on tour, she was told she would need to agree to three conditions. The first one was that she had to like Elvis.
The other was that she enjoyed her job, and the final one was that she had to enjoy working with Robbie himself. She told them the truth.
“I said I could learn to put up with him for four months,” she laughs. They decided to give her the job.
For more than 30 years, Karen has been in the pit in front of some of the biggest names in rock as they play to thousands of fans. The names are huge – including Take That, Blondie, Ian Brown, Richard Ashcroft, and more.
She has also, perhaps most excitingly for her, captured some of the most experimental and alternative bands as they b8id to make a name for themselves while paying underground venues.
Being invited on tour with Robbie, as part of his Close Encounters tour in 2006, actually came not long after Karen had publicly described the singer on radio as the one artist she would never want to work with.
But, being a bit of a rebel himself, he was perhaps drawn in by her brutal honesty.
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“Three weeks after I had spoken on radio about not wanting to photograph him, I got a phone call from his PR company asking me to meet him regarding his upcoming tour,” Karen tells the Manchester Evening News.
“He had seen a photo I’d taken of Pete Doherty and he had apparently told his team that he wanted whoever was behind the photo to go on tour with him.
“I think maybe we worked well together because I wasn’t ever a fan. I wasn’t devoted to him or trying to catch a glimpse of what he was really like backstage. I did eventually find myself admiring him a little bit, we had a nice bit of humour going on between us.
“But I do think he liked that I wasn’t ever one of those people who just said yes and did everything he said.”
Karen said she didn’t realise music photography could be a serious career(Image: Karen McBride)
For a girl who grew up in a council estate in Harpurhey, Karen never realised photographing bands could ever be a serious profession.
“Growing up in a north Manchester council estate, your story was kind of already told as soon as you were born,” she explains. “You weren’t ever really encouraged by wider society to be adventurous and have a career outside of what was expected of you.
“You were taught to survive, not really ever how to thrive.”
She had dreams of working in archaeology and becoming a photographer within that field. But when her brother encouraged her to photograph him and his band in the mid-90s, it began to open her eyes to what she could do instead.
“It never crossed my mind that this sort of thing could be an actual job,” she recalls. “It was still actually about five years of photographing small bands here and there that I realised that it was something I could take seriously. I just felt very comfortable behind the camera and I was drawn to these moments.”
Some of those artists she got to photograph in their early days included the Scissor Sisters, My Chemical Romance, The Darkness and The Ting Tings. One particular early music moment Karen was not drawn to, however, was an early gig from Oasis at The Boardwalk in the 90s.
Admitting she was not impressed with their attitude at the time, she was defiant about not photographing the band. It was a bold choice at what many would come to see as a lighting-in-a-bottle moment before the Gallagher brothers found fame.
Billy Bragg taken by Karen McBride(Image: Publicity Picture)
“I remember seeing them at the Boardwalk early on in their career and not really liking them,” she admits. “I even put my camera away when they took to the stage that night because I was just like ‘I’m not photographing you guys’.
“I don’t think it really made much difference to my career because I was never really fussed about them or following them around anyway. It wasn’t for me.”
Karen was drawn to photography through hours spent ‘in awe’ of the old cameras on display at the Stephens of Salford shop on Great Cheetham Street near her dad’s greengrocers, Now, she says her biggest achievements have come from photographing lesser-known bands in intimate grassroots venues across Manchester.
“Jon Ashley used to put on these great nights at The Roadhouse called Chairs Missing, and I just sort of found myself immersed in that scene because I was more drawn to the bands and musicians around that were keeping the local venues going, rather than all the big stars that were playing the stadiums and arenas.
“At the time, Oasis obviously had become massive and, from my memory, a lot of the bands were trying to be just like them. It was very much like ‘oh not again, not another one’ kind of thing.
“So, I was put off a bit by the mainstream, I was more interested in the alternative underground scene and with bands like Oceansize and tRANSELEMENt instead.
Some of Karen’s photography has now been compiled in her first ever book, Just a Girl from North Manchester.. It features the unsigned bands, overlooked artists and those who were treated like rock legends even if they weren’t hailed as some at the time, including acts like JJ Rosa and Manchester 00’s indie band The Paris Riots.
“I’ve photographed musicians for the best part of 30 years in Manchester now,” she says, explaining the reason for the book. “I wasn’t working for any big magazines or media outlets, I was just a little photographer from Manchester with no agency and no back-up – just a camera. I was there at the right time and the right place.
The Verve frontman Richard Ashcroft, as taken by Karen McBride(Image: Karen McBride)
“I wanted to be able to put everything together in one place to remember what I’ve actually done. The photography I’ve chosen just sort of goes with what I feel. It’s been really hard to choose what to include. It’s all deliberate in that there’s no page numbers or contents page – I want people to feel free to flip through and find a random page.”
The book’s cover features a shot of Mary Joanna Coogan, the niece of comedian Steve Coogan, in what Karen is one of her favourite photos she has taken. “Mary is an absolutely wonderful human being,” Karen recalls. “The photo was taken about ten years ago and we never really had a use for it until the book came about.
It’s taken outside the front door of my old council house. I just asked Mary if she could help me with a favour and get some photos done. I think she really captured the North Manchester girl spirit perfectly – as she is from Middleton herself. She got the vibe, she got what I was after. So when I put the book together, I got in touch and asked if we could use it and she said she would be honoured to be featured on it.”
Asked about another favourite of hers, she cites one photo of musician and writer John Robb. “He asked me one day if I knew any people who had horses and if I could take a photo of him on a horse,” she laughs. “I made it happen. It’s a great photo of him topless on this horse trotting down Deansgate with these dark clouds behind him.
“But these photos are all proof that it actually happened, isn’t it. It’s all proof that these people, these bands, these venues and that time period all existed. Like, it’s not just some made-up fantasy.
Music photographer Karen McBride has released a new book(Image: Karen McBride)
“I also hope my photography shows how grassroot venues have always been, and continue to be, such important spaces for musicians to make a name for themselves too. They’re able to go off and do bigger things because of the contribution those venues and those early crowds have had on their career. It’s an incredibly important space.”
And Karen did eventually end up working with Oasis – despite her hesitation back in the day. “I remember they were playing a show at the Etihad when it was the City of Manchester Stadium in 2005 as part of their Don’t Believe The Truth tour,” she recalls. “Liam looked so handsome in a pinstripe jacket and bucket hat and there were a lot of press photographers there, but I was just there with my camera and my lens.
“He was messing around backstage pretending to run down one side of the stage to confuse the photographers and catch them off-guard. I just thought to myself like ‘I’m not playing this game’, and he saw me and I got the most glorious photograph of him. But it was because I wasn’t like the rest of them, I wasn’t trying to get that paparazzi shot.
“The gig was unbelievable. Liam was bang on form, it was an incredible night. But they weren’t my band, I wasn’t suited to them as a photographer. They had their own photographer who stayed with them for years. Sometimes you’ve got to know when to step back and when to say they’re not your band. I didn’t need them in my life.”