Rock shooter Tony Mott on silverchair, Rolling Stones and other stars

The free event is 7pm at The Exchange Hotel in Hamilton. Mott will formally launch the book, and sign copies during the night.

The new book includes Mott's photos of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards mid- performance, Peter Garrett kneeling on stage eye-to-eye with the front row, Tex Perkins holding court in front of an army of fans at Sydney' s Big Day Out in 1994. "They tell the story not just of the musician, or the photographer, but of the thousands and thousands of fans who loved that song in that moment," according to a note by the producer, Wilkinson Publishing.

Tony was born in England in 1956. After training as a chef, he traveled the world, working as a chef in Sydney and then on international cruise ships. It was on those cruise ships that his desire to capture places and people was borne.

Back in Sydney's thriving live music scene in the early 1980s he honed his craft, taking photos of the Divinyls. This launched a career spanning decades taking photos of some of the biggest names in music, both on and off the stage.

Mott has published more than 30,000 photos in 20 countries, including 900 magazine front covers.

Mott has been a frequent visitor to Newcastle - photographing silverchair in their early days, holding sessions for the old TAFE Newcastle Music Week workshops and shooting still photography on the set of Paul Goldman's Australian film Suburban Mayhem.

"The original shoot of silverchair was taken in Sydney but I came to Newcastle twice to shoot the boys , spending the whole day with them," Mott says. "They were easy and difficult to work with - they had no attention span and just wanted the photo session to finish. Daniel was experimenting with mascara at the time. We wandered all of Newcastle."

Mott's just as well known for his behind-the-scenes shots.

"I divide rock n roll photography into two categories - live and session live," he says. "Live, the musician is in their comfort zone but I have no control over circumstances - light etc. Whereas session live, I'm in total control of light and location but the musician is out of their comfort zone. A sort of ying and yang, which do I prefer."

The new book is drawn from his many unpublished photos.