A first-hand photographic record of Boredoms’ Boadrum 111 performance in Byron Bay, Australia on 11/11/11. Over 80 scanned 35mm images capture Yamantaka Eye, Yoshimi P-We, and 111 drummers in giant concentric circles, preserved from original film negatives and prints.
It’s Friday, 11 November 2011. A crowd gathers in an old island quarry on the outskirts of Byron Bay, Australia. Something unique is about to happen here.
Yamantaka Eye and Yoshimi P-We stand at the centre, surrounded by giant concentric circles of drummers and cymbal players. At 11:11am, on the 11th of the 11th, 2011, the show begins.
Boredoms - Boadrum111 Poster (left) player layout map (right)
Boredoms, a noise band from Japan, were strangely unknown to me at the time — despite forming in the 1980s and my own interest in noise art. This performance became an epic introduction.
I was in Byron Bay for several days leading up to the event, spending time with the Hydrofunk Records farm with Dave Atkins, Tones McCall and Al Mawdsley, mostly to hang out and take photographs.
I carried two cameras. A Canon EOS-1N loaded with Ilford Delta 3200 black and white film — gloriously textured with heavy grain — and, at the other extreme, a Canon AE-1 loaded with Fuji Velvia RVP50 colour slide film.
I developed the Ilford rolls in my home lab, printing only a handful through the enlarger. Over time, I forgot about the photographs entirely — until I rediscovered the scanned contact sheets in Feb 2026.
Digging through my archive, I was relieved to find that my past self had carefully stored everything in labelled film sleeves — dated, catalogued, film stock and camera noted — all tucked neatly into a folder.
I have carefully rescanned the negatives and the handful of surviving prints, preserving them as they were originally captured.
Until now, I was the only person to have seen these images.
Now they are released as a small documented fragment of music history.
Boadrum111 - The Scanning Process
These images are covered by Creative Commons CC BY
This license enables reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, so long as attribution is given to the creator. The license allows for commercial use. CC BY includes the following elements:
BY: credit must be given to the creator.
If you would like copies of the high res scans, please send a message through my contact page which can be found in the footer, and I will send you a link to the archive. Enjoy! ✌️
The Luddite (above)
We met a local lady from Byron Bay while resting in the shade before the Boadrum 111 performance. She told us a story about living without modern technology.
"I consider myself a bit of a luddite," she said, "you know, I live without modern technology… oh… except for my iPad… and my iPhone, of course — I can’t live without them!"
We all burst into laughter. The story was delivered with the precise timing of a stand-up comic.
The only video I shot on a hand held pre smart-phone device.
A much better video by nandacoole
Video of the rehearsals by Sven
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