Find yourself in the Laneway Gallery

2009 was St Jerome’s Laneway Festival’s first visit to Perth. This begs the question, how does this festival rack up next to the many other festivals around at the moment? A convenient location was the main advantage, with it right next to the train station. Acts of different genres provided plenty of choice (or unfortunate timetable clashes), and all stages were easy to get to, with crowd members able to stroll by each stage to sample the acts before settling in to a decision of who to see next. Apart from this it was regular festival fare, same patrons (perhaps slightly less bogans), same food, same portaloos.

Going from Holly Throsby’s sweet and down to earth folksy ballads to Pivot’s onslaught of instrumentals was quite an aural effort. Pivot’s heavy guitars and rhythmic and technical drums were turned up just too loud to turn an aggravated switch in those audience members who were untrained to this genre of progressive, instrumental noise. Even so it was possible to be impressed by the obvious rhythmic ability and togetherness within the group. Dramatic and repetitive with minimal vocals, all 3 members were totally in tune with their instruments. Dave Miller on electronics was popping his head like a pigeon with the crowd taking their cues and nodding along, with a few dudes jumping about.

Snippets of Daedelus and Spiral Stairs showed the range of musical choice on the Laneways bill. From Daedalus, an electronic experimenter with enormous mutton chops to the band playing standard poppy type rock.

Following Spiral Stairs, Still Flyin’ are a party type jumble of 10 members and many instruments. A fun indie band with a reggae twinge, their set included stuffed pigs being thrown into the crowd and ending up on a punter’s head; and the singer holding a boogie board with their catch phrase of Hamm Jamm for a majority of the time. Like a bigger, looser version of a mix between Cat Empire and Architecture in Helsinki the band won over the masses and the amphitheatre of the Library stage was full. Most of the songs were a bit same-same with the focus less on musical quality, more on antics and eccentricities. In hindsight “Hamm Jamm” is surprisingly descriptive of their sound. Finishing with the Triple J played song Good Thing It’s A Ghost Town Around Here the band won those over in the crowd who felt like letting go and being silly rather than finding a concrete melody to attach to.

Cut Off Your Hands’ first song of Happy As Can Be introduced the dilemma of their main man Nick Johnston’s performance – does it matter that he doesn’t sing in tune if he’s charismatic and puts his whole body into the performance? This first song indicated that it would be a frustrating affair, as like many of their songs it was familiar and fun to sing along to, but his lack of intonation in the more melodic moments was worrisome for what was to come. In the less melodic tracks it was not an issue and we could focus on his crazy antics and energy like jumping into the crowd with wild abandon without checking if the crowd would catch him. Jumping on the drum kit, swinging his mic without concern for what it was hitting, and drumming along were enough distraction for some amount of time and enjoying the tight knit instrumentals was easy. Most of the crowd chose to ignore the intonation problems and jumped around with the band, but the issue did disappointingly rear its’ ugly head later on especially in Oh Girl and Still Fond . Except for this issue, the band could have been excellent. Ending the set with Expectations saw a bunch of excited youngsters mob the stage.

The Panics on-stage set up has barely changed from ~2004 when they were playing many shows in all of Perth’s local haunts, before they left to England. What has changed is their on-stage dynamic. Nervous energy no longer dominates the group; it seems they have grown into a singular unit of melodious story telling. Playing the Museum stage they gave the crowd the chance to mellow out and relax, letting the sweet perfection of Jae Laffer’s vocals soothe. Don’t Fight It was one highlight and one of many inducing crowd sing/sway-a-longs. Fire On The Hill ended their set and showed their instrumental strengths of gospel organ, jamming guitar and drum rolling. A certain pride came to those audience members who had seen these lads play early on in their career go on to grow from boys to men and achieve such success, with their album Cruel Guards winning the J Award. It was a shame that seeing this band came at a cost of missing Tame Impala, another Perth band just veering over the edge of success. Jeifer managed to catch them so check his review of the day.

The bar inside Pica provided a perfect refuge from the cold wind between bands. All needs were catered for – warmth, drinks without a long line, toilets, comfy cushions, board games, dj and video projector. It was hard to be drawn away from the comfort but more bands were calling.

Portuguese kuduro group Buraka Som Sistema were mixing drum’n’bass with hip hop on the Library Stage. A small bunch of people were trying to figure out what kind of dance moves would let them shake their arses quick enough to keep up with the hectic beats and energetic men onstage.

While Buraka Som Sistema were causing a metronomic aneurism, most of the crowd’s interests were captured by Architecture in Helsinki at the Museum stage, pre- Girl Talk. The band gave a perfect start to the party after the previous act, which was was notably down-beat. Unlike other party bands, the rhythm and frivolity does not come at a cost of melody, as there was plenty of singing-along to be done by all, especially for Hold Music and Heart It Races. The crowd was starting to pack in and densify ready for Girl Talk and were taking their energetic cues from the throng onstage. Architecture In Helsinki are an undeniably fun band who bring enough musicality to satisfy both party-seeking festival meat-heads and musical snobs alike.

After hearing reports of the Melbourne Laneway’s fiasco, it seems that Girl Talk is not having much luck on his tour with the Laneway festival. He started his set with mash-ups heard on his recent album Feed The Animals , and a vast majority of the day’s punters crammed into all nooks and crannies surrounding the Museum stage. With any dj you have to wonder what they will do visually to make the performance different from simply turning up your stereo really loud and dancing with a bunch of your mates. Girl Talk started out bouncing around, throwing his body so violently that whiplash could ensue, with the crowd feeding off his energy and amping themselves up. Unfortunately, less than fifteen minutes into his set disaster struck and ruined a speaker that started crackling like fireworks were going off inside of it. Girl Talk started yelling something incomprehensible into the microphone, presumably to the effect of “don’t go away we’ll fix this” and after ten minutes of waiting it seemed like things might be back on track. But no, soon after this the crackling started again and the sound was slightly muted from then onwards. The question now was, do we wait it out to see if things will pick up, or do we choose to leave and take the opportunity to see one of Australia’s best bands?

Most stayed, hoping for more of a party time, a few left to see the rest of Augie March’s set. Glenn Richards is nothing if not a perfectionist, and this is definitely evident in their sublime sound. Some might say his perfectionism is to the detriment of their live performance but the quality of sound from the whole band is undeniable and Richards’ intensity is captivating in itself. The addition of Dan Kelly on guitar and backing vocal most definitely adds to their live performance – some may say he’s acting as a peace-keeper between Richards and other band members, whether or not this is true he certainly adds sex appeal. Hear more about Augie March’s performance in Jeifer’s review.

Find yourself in the Laneway Gallery