Photographer Ian Laidlaw On the Misplaced Artwork of Music Discovery

Ian Laidlaw has photographed each single version of Yours & Owls because it launched in his hometown of Wollongong in 2014, watching the pageant develop from a scrappy afternoon of 1,500-2,000 punters and a tiny stage to a real staple of the Australian pageant circuit.

Yours & Owls has by no means been one to take a seat nonetheless, so to have a good time its tenth anniversary this yr, the pageant is shaking issues up. Day one will return to Flagstaff Hill on Wollongong’s foreshore, whereas day two will flip Steel City into Music City because the pageant takes to the streets and CBD venues.

But whereas the pageant has grown and altered form over the previous decade, one factor has remained at its core: giving rising Australian artists a stage. Laidlaw has watched loads of them come via earlier than they turned among the nation’s largest names, from hometown heroes Hockey Dad to Gang of Youths, The Rubens and The Preatures. “Those early lineups gave bands a platform, and then they springboarded from there,” he tells Rolling Stone AU/NZ. “I’m still blown away, looking back, at how far ahead of the curve some of those bookings were.”

That spirit of discovery feels significantly becoming for this yr’s pageant. More than 70 acts are unfold throughout the weekend, with day two’s venue-hopping format encouraging punters to wander via Wollongong and, ideally, stumble throughout one thing they didn’t arrive planning to see. For Laidlaw, that’s at all times been one of many nice strengths of festivals: “It gives you something you weren’t expecting.”

Self-discovery can really feel more and more uncommon in an age the place TikTok, streaming algorithms, and on-line hype can inform us what we’re alleged to be listening to earlier than we’ve had the prospect to seek out it ourselves. Laidlaw nonetheless believes there’s one thing highly effective – and maybe underrated – about it.

Ahead of the pageant, Rolling Stone AU/NZ caught up with Laidlaw to look again via a decade behind the lens, the artists he watched develop up on its phases, the enduring thrill of discovering a band for the primary time, and why he’ll hold returning to Wollongong for so long as he can.

Rolling Stone AU/NZ: You’ve been capturing Yours & Ours for ten years now. What do you keep in mind concerning the early days, and the way have issues modified since?

Ian Laidlaw: I’ve carried out plenty of festivals over time, all over the world and in Australia, however the preliminary beginnings of Yours & Ours had been actually thrilling for me personally. I used to be born and raised in Wollongong, and I’d left as a result of there was nothing artistic taking place there. So when Ben [Tillman], Adam [Smith], and Balunn [Jones] determined to do that pageant and referred to as me as much as {photograph} it, I stated sure immediately – these guys have been household to me for a very long time.

The scale of that first one was tiny, clearly, simply teething points, beginning out – possibly 1,500 to 2,000 folks on a really small stage. I keep in mind considering, ‘If this doesn’t go forward once more, a minimum of they did it as soon as’. But I might see of their minds that this was by no means a short-term factor. Every yr, I’ve watched them curate a greater lineup and produce it again greater. I’ve watched it explode from a tiny native occasion right into a staple of the Australian pageant circuit… Consider the festivals that dominated Australia again in 2014 – inform me the place most of them are actually.

Is there anybody you photographed in these early years who you have a look at now and assume, ‘I can’t imagine they’re doing what they’re doing?’

If you return to these first two or three lineups, you possibly can see precisely the place a few of these bands ended up. Hockey Dad is the important thing instance – I’ve received portraits of them from the very first pageant the place they’re legitimately youngsters. I feel they had been underage the primary time they performed. You might see one thing in them, and so they pushed themselves additional and farther from there. Everyone from that first invoice – Safia, Dune Rats, artists like that – have gone on to grow to be a extremely steady a part of the Australian music group.

Then there’s Gang of Youths, who performed round 4pm or 5pm in 2015. It wasn’t that the slot was improper for them – it was extra that you could possibly see one thing in them that was clearly greater than that stage. There was at all times just a little additional magic in a few of these artists. The Rubens and the Preatures had been the identical – bands that went on to grow to be staples of the Australian touring circuit. Those early lineups gave bands a platform, after which they springboarded from there. I’m nonetheless blown away, trying again, at how far forward of the curve a few of these bookings had been.

Can you are feeling when an artist has that particular reside presence? What was it about Gang of Youths particularly? 

I don’t need to make this about my age and the way a lot work I’ve carried out, however sure, I nonetheless get it – although possibly not as typically as I used to. There have been exhibits the place I’ve simply put the digital camera down, stopped, taken a breath, and thought, ‘This is a moment worth soaking up rather than documenting’. With a few of these artists, I keep in mind considering, ‘This will go big. There’s simply no manner it couldn’t.’

If you strip all the pieces away and simply concentrate on the act, and there’s nonetheless one thing within the presence – the supply, the tone, an vitality that some artists have as a unit that turns into virtually infectious. You really feel one thing shift inside, and you may’t fairly put your finger on what’s taking place but, however you already know it’s magic.

What’s your favorite a part of capturing a pageant?

There’s a selected factor I gravitate in the direction of, and it at all times comes all the way down to the emotion an artist places out on stage. Sometimes the group’s just a little flat, and that’s precisely the place I’ve at all times revered artists who come out and go, ‘I’m right here, I’m supplying you with this artwork, I’m not commanding your consideration, however I’m going to win it’. I really like watching that occur.

Festival units are brief – 40 to 60 minutes of the best-of-the-best, you already know, ‘Here’s our catalogue, I’m right here to entertain’ – and that range is one thing I’ve at all times beloved about festivals. They’ve formed me, as a result of they launched me to genres and artists I’d by no means have discovered in any other case. That’s the magic of a pageant – it provides you one thing you weren’t anticipating. If you stroll in with that form of optimism, going, ‘I’ve by no means heard of this band, however that sounds cool, I’ll examine them out’, that’s precisely how folks grow to be followers of artists they’d by no means beforehand thought of.

These days we uncover plenty of music via TikTok and streaming earlier than we ever see somebody reside. Do you assume we’ve misplaced a few of that unintentional discovery festivals used to supply?

In some methods, sure, and I’ve been affected by that too. A very good instance is the hype round Geese earlier than they performed Laneway final yr. All I heard was how superb they had been – and none of it satisfied me till I really noticed them play.

It’s not that I don’t imagine what folks say a few band, it’s that self-discovery is what makes it fulfilling as a fan. You can inform me a band is nice, but when it doesn’t resonate with me, that’s okay – I’d moderately not have it pushed on me by outward media and as an alternative discover it myself. I’m positive being behind the eight ball on that. I’ve constructed my complete profession discovering bands in my very own time moderately than having them handed to me.

The manner audiences method unfamiliar artists, has that modified over time you’ve been doing this?

I feel it may possibly go both manner, and there’s no improper solution to uncover a band, whether or not it’s been round 15 years or three months. I’m going again to an period of choosing up avenue press each week and flicking via gig guides, with out the flexibility to analysis an artist intimately earlier than seeing them. Now folks can lookup interviews, get an actual grasp on a more recent artist earlier than they even stroll in. That’s good and dangerous. But there’s one thing about discovering an artist with zero context that also feels extra thrilling – you simply go, ‘Whoa, where did this come from?’

Do you assume artists who arrive at a pageant with that pre-existing hype make it more durable for different acts on the invoice to interrupt via?

It’s a superb query. When you’ve received an artist like Geese, or Fontaines D.C., Olivia Dean – all with an enormous quantity of hype – I don’t assume it actually hurts the opposite artists. That’s the fantastic thing about a various pageant: they convey collectively individuals who love music from each angle. Some followers need to see the hyped band, others need a utterly totally different style on a unique stage.

I’ve felt for bands scheduled in opposition to acts with that form of swell of media consideration. But it may possibly minimize each methods relying on how the pageant is constructed. This is the place good programming workers matter – they’ll see it coming and construction the day to provide folks the perfect shot at seeing all the pieces, even when it’s not at all times completely avoidable.

When you look again now at your pictures of artists earlier than they had been family names, do these photographs tackle a unique that means for you?

They do. Honestly, I don’t ask myself that query typically sufficient – I’ve received a little bit of an terrible behavior of by no means trying again, at all times trying forward, which is typically to my detriment. But this interview pressured me again into my archive, and I’ve spent the final couple of days going via years of labor, considering, thank god I used to be there.

Sometimes it’s about watching folks I do know go from youngsters to their mid-thirties, mother and father, no matter it’s. That’s at all times been a part of why I do that – I wished to time-capsule the scene, the vitality, the presence of what was taking place in our music group on the time. I have a look at bands that don’t exist anymore, and I’m pleased with the archive I’ve constructed. Some of the funniest pictures are of bands like Dune Rats and Hockey Dad, and I’ll assume, ‘I’ve been working with you for fifteen years – how did that occur?’. That archive is invaluable to me. Underneath the humour, I see the vitality, the innocence, the ascension in these faces. It’s a reminder of how this all ties again from the artist to the pageant, to the city.

Has your pictures itself grown up alongside these artists?

Yes. I didn’t have a lot path early on – it was simply, ‘I’m right here, I really like this, hold going’. I shot an infinite quantity of labor with out a lot of a filter. I don’t work outdoors the music business a lot in any respect; immersing myself on this world at all times felt pure. Like most younger photographers, I used to be erratic – twenty bands in a day, operating flat out. That was good in plenty of methods, however slowing down and getting extra affected person was the perfect step ahead in my profession. I don’t have to {photograph} each band or take a thousand photographs anymore. Sometimes it’s 5 or 6 pictures, or one particular angle. It’s about timing and endurance now, representing what’s truthfully in entrance of me, moderately than capturing all the pieces that strikes.

Was that shift to being extra intentional a deliberate determination, or one thing you grew into?

Both. I’m working and representing the pageant, so a part of my mind works methodically – there are briefs I have to hit. But one other half goes, ‘Alright, slow down, see what you actually want to take’. I discovered that from an expensive good friend of mine, a photographer in Brisbane – I observed he’d cease, take a breath, look, and watch for the second as an alternative of operating via the pit firing off a thousand frames. If you’re ready and prepared, one photograph is price the identical as 100. That endurance utterly modified how dialled-in my work turned, and I nonetheless do it to at the present time.

This yr’s Yours & Ours has a brand new format – a standard pageant day adopted by a avenue crawl via Wollongong. What are you most enthusiastic about?

When I first heard the format, I assumed, ‘How’s this going to work?’. The pageant’s moved via plenty of websites over time – Stuart Park, Towradgi, Dalton Park throughout COVID, the college grounds, then the Harbour final yr, which was implausible – however I like this new concept. It retains the joy of a pageant with out it simply being one floor with phases again to again. One day provides you the total facilities and staging; the following is a crawl via city, into small rooms and smaller phases. It jogs my memory of the unique Laneway festivals in Sydney and Melbourne, held actually in and round laneways – I keep in mind when the Basement in Sydney was a venue for it, and also you genuinely didn’t know the place to go subsequent. It’s a extremely cool, genuinely distinctive solution to run a pageant.

It feels much like Sydney’s King Street crawl. 

Yeah, it does. I’ve at all times considered a King Street-style crawl as nearer to my very own private style, as a result of it’s not about one contained floor – it’s the entire group. It exhibits off the vibe of the city itself, and in Yours & Owls’ context, it’s particular as a result of it’s I grew up. Wandering these outdated again streets goes to be an unimaginable feeling.

This will likely be your tenth yr photographing the pageant. Does that make it really feel extra nostalgic?

It does. We’ve had flooding years, we’ve had the COVID yr, however that is the one date in my calendar that’s locked in yearly, wherever I’m. Not simply because the blokes operating it are shut buddies – I do know what they’ve carried out for this city. I left Wollongong as a result of there was so little of a artistic scene right here. Watching it go from nothing again to having actual vitality and a music group once more, due to this pageant, is unimaginable.

Wollongong ought to at all times have been a mainstay on the touring circuit – it’s so near Sydney. Growing up, the native venues that introduced bands via would put them on a Wednesday or Thursday as a stopgap earlier than their Sydney present. Bands like Little Red, Dappled Cities, Midnight Juggernauts all got here via Wollongong within the early 2000s. This city was typically ignored, marginalised – no one thought it was essentially the most artistic place on the earth. But there have been at all times music followers right here. The indisputable fact that the Yours & Ours group noticed that and constructed one thing that’s lasted this lengthy is a testomony to them, and I hope it by no means ends.

For anybody heading to Yours & Ours this yr, is there anybody on the invoice you’re particularly excited to catch or would suggest?

Outside the artists I already know and have labored with, there’s a bunch of actually good acts. WAAX goes to be unimaginable, I really like Mini Skirt, and I’ve shot exhibits with them for years, and I haven’t had the prospect to see Dust but, so I’m trying ahead to that. I’m additionally excited for Playlunch – this self-confessed bogan rock is so hilarious to me.

Honestly, going via the lineup, I attempt to discover bands I do know nothing about – I’ll have a look at a photograph and assume, ‘That looks great, I’m going to examine them out.’ I can’t go previous Ball Park Music, although – they’re such proficient artists, great songs and an enticing stage presence. Tkay Maidza’s going to be implausible, and I’m actually trying ahead to seeing The Drones once more after a number of years between exhibits. And from the acts I don’t know but, I’m eager for Spike Fuck and Any Young Mechanic – I caught a small glimpse of them at Harvest Rock in Adelaide final yr and thought, yeah, I need to see extra of that.

But earlier than I even get to a pageant, I’m going via the entire lineup and check out to not take heed to anybody – I simply need to have a look at the photographs and get a really feel for who I need to take a look at.

You’ve talked about a number of occasions {that a} photograph alone could make you need to take a look at a band. Do you are feeling a accountability in that, understanding different folks would possibly uncover an artist the identical manner, purely via your picture?

I actually hope so, as a result of to me, that’s the job. I take into consideration visible illustration always, and it goes again to how I found music myself – via avenue press. I’d have a look at a band’s press pictures earlier than I even learn the evaluate, and if there was one thing in that picture, I’m hooked. Like, ‘This band looks badass, that’s participating, I need to pay attention’. That is likely to be a photographer’s bias, however I’ve at all times believed the visible entrance of a band issues enormously. I don’t even have to know what they sound like… if the photograph’s that participating, I need to hear it.

I’ll offer you a superb instance. I’d by no means listened to Laufey earlier than I shot her Melbourne present a few weeks in the past. I stood at entrance of home, the primary track began, and I needed to put my digital camera down. I really like that massive, orchestral, old-world form of lovely music, and I genuinely thought, ‘What am I watching?’. Twelve and a half thousand folks within the room already knew each phrase and the whole historical past of the band. I hadn’t intentionally prevented her – it simply wasn’t what I’d been listening to. And I used to be blown away. That’s somebody in his early forties, twenty-five years into capturing exhibits, nonetheless going, ‘Oh, wow’.

Do you assume it’s rarer now to have that form of ‘taken aback’ second, given how a lot info is accessible earlier than you even stroll in?

Fifteen or twenty years in the past, info on artists simply wasn’t as accessible, so discovering one thing chilly hit more durable. I don’t intentionally keep away from studying about an artist to protect that feeling – it’s actually simply all the way down to what I occur to be listening to at any given time. You can’t take heed to all the pieces, and totally different days name for various vitality. That’s why I really like music, why I really like the humanities – they fill totally different elements of us at totally different occasions. Live music particularly is uncanny; nothing else replicates that mixture of visible and aural stimulation taking place proper in entrance of you.

That’s precisely why a various pageant lineup issues to me. I’m not strolling right into a invoice of twenty artists I already know – I’m strolling into sixty or seventy, of which I would know twenty %. That’s the brilliance of it, as a result of it’s on me to go and discover the remaining. Magdalena Bay is an effective instance – I’d by no means heard them earlier than final yr, till a good friend of mine on the pictures group instructed me to examine them out. I stood there and thought, ‘This is absolutely incredible. It’s enjoyable, pop, theatrical.’ I by no means would have discovered that alone.

It’s attention-grabbing what number of of those discoveries of yours are artists doing one thing fairly totally different. 

Olivia Dean is a good instance – a contemporary spin on an older style fully, and it’s unimaginable exactly as a result of it isn’t chasing no matter’s trending. It’s an artist going, ‘This is what feels natural to me, and it’s lovely’. I by no means would have picked any of those artists to resonate with me the way in which they did, and the actual fact I nonetheless get that rush of pleasure discovering one thing new – even after doing this for therefore lengthy – issues to me. It could be straightforward to get jaded by repetition on this business. Stepping again and realising how a lot real distinction exists on the market, and appreciating each artist’s creativity on their very own phrases, is essential. Especially contemplating that if somebody requested me to stand up on a stage and carry out in entrance of a crowd, the reply could be a direct, absolute no.

That’s what makes an artist’s confidence to step out and put their work in entrance of individuals, to be judged nevertheless folks select, so outstanding. It takes actual boldness, particularly for younger artists doing it on a significant pageant stage surrounded by greater names, nerves and all. That’s the place everybody begins. Ball Park Music, DMA’S, G Flip – all of them lived via that very same emerging-artist trajectory as soon as.

What does this pageant imply to you, past the pictures?

I really feel a model of what these artists really feel, regardless that my face isn’t the one on stage and other people don’t know what I seem like – and that’s positive by me. Documenting the tradition, the music scene, and the expertise this nation has produced for therefore lengthy is genuinely essential to me. And doing it within the city I used to be born in, alongside buddies of mine, makes it much more particular.

I’m hoping for excellent climate, a sell-out crowd, and other people travelling in from everywhere in the nation. I imply, there aren’t many festivals in Australia with a setting as idyllic as Wollongong. I keep in mind standing on website with the Fontaines D.C. guys final yr and telling them, ‘I grew up in this town’, and so they simply stated, ‘This place is incredible’.

But it’s the vitality and the love put right into a pageant that exhibits it’s not simply there to flog tickets and depart. Sustainability issues as a result of retaining tradition and the humanities alive on this nation issues. When touring is more durable, and the price of residing limits what folks can afford to go and see, a pageant that provides you two days and seventy-five bands for the value of usually simply a few exhibits is enormously invaluable. It provides audiences the prospect to see artists they’d in any other case by no means have thought to take a look at, and that’s precisely what turns a pageant set into the sort that lives in folks’s recollections for years afterwards.

I by no means need to see this pageant finish. Looking again on the 2014 lineup I shot, and evaluating them to what’s occurred to festivals like Big Day Out, Stereosonic, Falls and Bluesfest since – festivals I genuinely minimize my enamel on – it’s a disgrace they’re gone. But it’s simply as essential that different festivals have come via to maintain that touring cycle alive.

I’ll hold coming again for so long as I bodily can, as a result of it’s concerning the spirit of this group – younger artists, rising artists, established and worldwide names, all coming collectively on this lovely little pocket I used to be fortunate sufficient to be born into. I’m extremely pleased with what the group has constructed right here for Wollongong over the previous decade, and I’ll be there with bells on.

For full pageant and ticket info, see here. 

YOURS & OWLS 2026

Saturday, October Third-Sunday, October 4th
Wollongong Foreshore, South Beach & Wollongong City, NSW

Lineup: 

BBNO$ (Aus Exclusive) || G FLIP
BALL PARK MUSIC || DMA’S || GENESIS OWUSU || HIATUS KAIYOTE
LUUDE || MIDDLE KIDS || PNAU || THE DRONES || TKAY MAIDZA
1TBSP || C.FRIM || COSMO’S MIDNIGHT || FANNY LUMSDEN
FIRST DAY BACK || FOLK BITCH TRIO|| FURNACE & THE FUNDAMENTALS
GEORGIA MAQ || MIETZE CONTE || MOKTAR || PLAYLUNCH
PRINCESS CHELSEA || RONA. || WAAX || YES BOONE || ZACH STEPHENSON
BOOTLEG RASCAL || DUST || FOOL NELSON || FUKHED || MID DRIFT || MINI SKIRT
MUDRAT || NERVE || RADIUM DOLLS || SPIKE FUCK || SURF TRASH
ANTENNA || ANY YOUNG MECHANIC || BLIND GIRLS || CARLA GENEVE || COLD/HEAT || DELIVERY || DEM MOB
DOWN AND OUT || EGOISM || FEEL THE PAIN || HORSE || KRYSTAL RIVVERS || LOOSE CONTENT || LUCKY
MAC THE KNIFE || MEL BLUE || NICE BISCUIT || SECRET WORLD || SEX MASK || SILKY ROADS || SLIM KRUSTY
SPECIAL FEATURES || SUPERNEW || THE CHEAKS || THE GNOMES || THE GOOD KIDS || THE VANDASTRUTS
VLADS || VOLATILE WAYS
AIRLINE || ALIENIST || CHELSEA DAGHITA || COURTESY BUS || CREEPING JENNY || DROPPING HONEY || HOLIDAY
HOT PURSUIT || LIOTTA RAIL || LOCAL TOUGH GUY || MIRAN.DA || PROXY DIVER || SHAKAMOTO || SILVAS
SMARTCASUAL || SORT IT OUT || SULTANS OF SPIN || THE CHORDROYS || THE MIDNIGHT TIDES