Three EPs, One Special Guest & The Reality of Live Music

23 hours ago

7 min read

Indian Ocean Hotel, Scarborough | 11 September 2026

Three EP launches. Four acts. A special guest. A photographer in heels. And a room temporarily forced to choose between live music and football.

Welcome to Friday night at the Indian Ocean Hotel.

I'd arrived thinking I was running late.

Turns out I was early.

Again.

After what had already been a fairly crazy day, it was actually a welcome surprise. Despite driving past the Indian Ocean Hotel countless times when I used to live in Perth, somehow I'd never actually been inside, so arriving early gave me a chance to put the camera down for a moment, sit back and take the place in before the music started.

And honestly? It was a bloody lovely vibe.

People were scattered around the pool outside, eating, drinking and chatting in the fresh air. Inside, soundchecks and final preparations were happening, but there was none of that frantic pre-gig feeling.

Everyone was just... chilled.

Someone who'd encountered me at the Scarborough Beach Weekender recognised me and stopped to say hello. Apparently BTN and Uncle Tatt are becoming somewhat recognisable around the WA music scene..... Although, in fairness, I was standing there in leather shorts, a harness, vest, skirt/cape, high-heeled boots, with face tattoos and dreads.

Subtle isn't exactly my brand.

I was also shown where the green room was and invited backstage with the artists — something I've increasingly found happening while I'm out covering shows.

I fully intended to make my way back there.

I completely forgot.

It had already been a long day, so between sets I ended up checking my camera gear, looking over what I'd shot and grabbing a little rest before getting back onto the floor for the next artist.

Apparently I'm still considerably better at photographing (and writing about) musicians than remembering I'm supposed to go and talk to them!

There was, however, another slight complication tonight.

Football.

The big outdoor screens were showing the Dockers, meaning plenty of people were faced with that great Western Australian dilemma:

Footy or live music?

Personally, I don't understand the dilemma.

Woo. Grown adults chasing a ball around some grass.

But live music?

That's worth my time.

Lights Out Band

Special guests Lights Out Band had the job of opening the night, although this time they were performing without Jayden, who was over in America, with another musician stepping in while he was away.

If you've seen Lights Out before, you'll know they don't exactly ease themselves onto a stage.

They hit it.

Hard.

From the beginning, Jorja and the crew brought the same full-energy performance I've come to expect from them.

Their biggest challenge wasn't getting the room moving — it was convincing half the audience to stop watching the football.

And somehow they were still managing it.

People gradually started drifting towards the stage as the set went on, drawn inside by what was happening in front of them.

The funniest part came afterwards.

I had people who'd remained outside approach me to tell me how much Lights Out rocked.

So apparently they were listening.

They just couldn't multitask.

What continues to impress me about this band is that most of them are still incredibly young, yet they're already doing the thing so many aspiring musicians spend years talking about doing.

They're getting themselves out there.

They're taking the gigs.

They're playing the stages.

They're learning how to work different rooms and different crowds.

And they're building experience every time they do it.

Their age isn't stopping them from chasing the dream — and at this point Lights Out Band aren't simply showing potential.

They're becoming a seriously impressive young live act in their own right.

Tom Reagan — In Company

Once the football finally wrapped up, attention shifted properly inside and Tom Reagan took the stage to launch his EP, In Company.

And suddenly the night changed gears.

After the full-band attack of Lights Out, Tom appeared with just himself and a drummer.

But less people onstage certainly didn't mean less impact.

With the football finished, people flooded back inside and the stripped-back setup gave Tom's music room to breathe.

It was a completely different energy from what had come before it, and that's exactly why it worked.

There's something great about putting artists at different stages of their development together on the same bill.

For younger musicians, opening these nights isn't just about filling a support slot before the more experienced acts arrive.

They're watching.

They're learning.

They're building stagecraft and discovering what works — and sometimes what doesn't — in front of a real audience.

That's experience you can't manufacture in a rehearsal room.

Lachie Dods — Cheesy

Next came someone I'd seen perform before, although previously with longer hair and standing a little further away from the spotlight.

Tonight was different.

Lachie Dods was launching his first solo EP, Cheesy.

And Lachie hadn't just decided to step forward as a vocalist.

He'd built himself a bloody band.

In the space of only a few months he'd been working on releasing his own tracks and putting together the Lachie Dods Band, moving from being another musician onstage to becoming the person standing at the front of it.

That's a transition I'd been particularly interested to see.

Because being a good musician and being a frontman aren't necessarily the same skill.

Once you're standing in the middle, the attention lands on you.

You've got to lead the musicians around you, connect with the audience and carry the performance.

Lachie looked ready for it.

Working through Cheesy, some other original material and the occasional familiar cover, the band had the room jumping.

By now the football had finally lost its grip and most people had moved inside for the music.

For someone I'd previously watched occupying a very different place onstage, there was something pretty cool about seeing Lachie step forward and claim a space of his own.

Sometimes everyone deserves the opportunity to step into the spotlight and find out what happens when it's finally theirs.

The Arcade Lights — The Path Less Travelled

Three acts down.

It was already around 10:40pm.

And The Arcade Lights were still to come, launching their EP The Path Less Travelled as the night's headline act.

But something had changed.

The crowd had started to dwindle.

It's one of those realities of live music that doesn't necessarily make it into the carefully selected photos afterwards.

You never really know what you're going to walk out to.

Sometimes there are hundreds of people waiting for you.

Sometimes there are considerably fewer.

What matters is what you do once you're on that stage.

The Arcade Lights played.

And they played hard.

The smaller crowd didn't result in a smaller performance.

If anything, they attacked the room with an energy reminiscent of Lights Out at the beginning of the night.

And they weren't content with keeping the performance neatly contained to the stage either.

The action moved around the venue, with the lead singer working the room and eventually taking the music outside for a guitar jam.

If the audience wasn't going to come to the band, the band was quite prepared to go to the audience.

That's what performing is.

The Arcade Lights are a more mature and established group than some of the artists who'd appeared earlier in the night, but being established doesn't mean every show is automatically packed.

Time in the industry doesn't guarantee ticket sales.

Popularity doesn't guarantee a full room.

What experience can give you is the ability to handle the nights when things don't go exactly as you'd hoped.

There was no sense of The Arcade Lights simply going through the motions because fewer people remained to see it.

They still performed.

They still worked the room.

They still gave the people who were there a show.

And I think that's an important lesson for any emerging artist watching.

A handful of people in a room still matter.

Those people can become fans.

They can tell their friends.

They can come back next time and bring someone with them.

They'll also remember the band that gave them everything when it would have been incredibly easy to decide the night didn't matter.

The Reality of Live Music

By the end of the night, I'd watched four acts at very different stages of their musical journeys.

Lights Out Band showed once again that being young doesn't mean waiting around for someone to eventually give you permission to start.

Tom Reagan showed that you don't need a stage overflowing with musicians to command attention.

Lachie Dods stepped out from where I'd seen him before and into the role of frontman, launching something that was entirely his own.

And The Arcade Lights demonstrated perhaps one of the hardest realities of performing:

The size of the crowd doesn't decide the size of your performance.

But somewhere during the night I realised there was another part of this story too.

At the moment, I'll sometimes travel four or five hours to cover these gigs.

I'll spend hours on my feet photographing multiple acts, checking gear between sets, going through photos, writing afterwards and inevitably forgetting I'm supposed to be networking because I'm too busy actually doing the work.

I do it because I genuinely want to support these artists.

I want to photograph them.

I want to write about them.

I want BTN Music Club to give independent and emerging musicians another little corner of the internet where somebody is actually paying attention to what they're creating.

And I've increasingly found that the artists appreciate someone making that effort.

But the support isn't only travelling in one direction.

Every artist, promoter and venue that welcomes BTN into a show is supporting my creative work too.

Every time someone puts my name on a door, lets me bring the camera in, points me towards a green room I'm apparently destined to forget about, or simply makes me feel welcome in their creative space, they're giving me another opportunity to build this slightly strange thing BTN has become.

That's what the arts are supposed to be about.

Community. Support. Collaboration.

Musicians supporting photographers.

Photographers supporting musicians.

Venues giving artists somewhere to play.

Audiences taking a chance on music they might never have heard before.

Independent media making sure some of those moments don't simply disappear when the lights go down.

Three new EPs were launched at the Indian Ocean Hotel that night.

But what stayed with me wasn't necessarily one song, one photograph or one performance.

It was watching artists at completely different stages of their journeys sharing a stage and supporting each other's work.

It was watching a ridiculously young band hold its own.

A musician stepping forward with a project of his own.