Yours & Owls Festival 2017 @ Stuart Park, 30th October – 1st November ’17
Yours & Owls Festival started life as a coffee shop located in the CBD of Wollongong.
The venue quickly became popular in Wollongong as you could see live performances 7 nights a week, this brought a great music scene and Wollongong quickly became the place to be. Yours & Owls have grown from a small coffee shop to a promotion and management company, and they are proud to celebrate their 6th festival this year.
This weekend Across The Ocean attended Yours & Owls Festival at Stuart Park in Wollongong for an amazing 2 day line-up. The festival consisted of a lot of new bands and the headliners that stole the show were The Presets and At The Drive-In.
When we got to Yours & Owls Festival there were fans at the gate waiting to get their passes so they could start their day, they had a smile on their face from ear to ear and they were ecstatic to see their favourite bands play. It was so windy at the festival that fences blew over, except that didn’t deter festival goers – they still came in the masses.
The first band that I saw was called Love Buzz, this is a band from Wollongong they describe themselves as a band which play “messy rock with their mates”. This was a great band to see and I thought they were a fun act to watch.
After this I saw Ivan Ooze a DJ from Melbourne, Victoria. He has had plenty of experience performing live sets and has performed with Cypress Hill, Ice Cube and the recent national tour with Wu-Tang Clan, just to name a few. When festival goers realised that he was playing they walked over in the masses and started dancing, he certainly knows how to keep a crowd entertained.
Then we went and saw Alex Lahey. She drew a big crowd fans were singing and dancing along with the songs. Last year Alex Lahey recorded her debut EP. The first single that introduced her to the airwaves was Air and her music draws you in by using melodic, guitar-driven hooks.
Los Labios are a band from Spain that play rock music. That just released an album called Birthday. They came over and played some of their new music and also played some classic hits. I would defiantly recommend seeing them next time they are over it’s a band you don’t want to miss.
Across The Ocean watched a lot of bands this weekend including Wavves, an American rock band formed in 2008, Donny Benet Showband, City Clam Down, Totally Unicorn, A.B. Originals & Bad//Dreems among many other amazing acts.
The Presets took the main stage and the show was amazing. There was a laser show to go along with the set and everyone was dancing. They performed their chart topping hit ‘My People’ and as I looked out into a sea of people everyone was singing along, including myself. The Presets are a world class international act and were formed in 2003 when Julian Hamilton and Kim Moyes met at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. In 2003 they signed with Modular Recordings and The Presets released two EPs and an album ‘Beams’.
At The Drive-In are five piece American punk rock bands from El Paso, Texas. They started the band in 1994. At The Drive-In has changed band members a few times over the years and now consists of Cedric Bixler, Omar Rodríguez, Paul Hinojos, Tony Hajjar and Keeley Davis. At The Drive-In reunited in January 2012 and played the 2012 Coachella and Arts Festival and Lollapalooza in the US. They were quick to take another break in their music career. In 2016 the band reunited for a second time, with guitarist and sometimes lead vocalist Jim Ward leaving to pursue his own career they replaced him with Sparta‘s Keeley Davis. The band has since released their fourth studio album Inter alia and proceeded with a global tour.
Yours & Owls Festival was a fantastic festival to attend, with world class act and an amazing atmosphere. It’s great to see such a big music festival supporting both small bands that are starting out and big bands. I will defiantly attend next year’s event as I had a brilliant weekend.
Photos: Benon Julius William Otto Koebsch
She has studied digital photography at Macquarie College. She also runs a interview and review website called Twinmusix. She interviews bands from Australia and all around the globe.
She is working with promoters from all around the world on festivals such as Hellfest. The headliners of Hellfest this year are Aerosmith, Deep Purple and Linkin Park.
Starting in only 2016 she has accomplished a lot in a short period of time and looks forward to continuing in the future.
- Yours & Owls Festival 2018 - January 13, 2019
- The Dean Ween Group/Primus @ The Enmore, 6th April ’18 - April 16, 2018
- Incubus @ Hordern Pavilion, 17th March ’18 - March 21, 2018
