The St Jerome’s Laneway Festival – billed as 10 hours of the finest indie-pop around – has arrived in Brisbane for the first time and commandeered the narrow alleyway behind The Zoo. Good times, stalls, food and booze are promised. And, of course, a mind-blowing amount of music.
Alas, illness prevents this reviewer from catching the first half of the event, but by 6pm a couple thousand people are crammed cheek-by-jowl all along Winn St near the Laneway stage. It’s a case of carefully picking one’s way to the back door of the Zoo. Inside, hundreds of people are crushed towards the front to listen to WA’s Snowman strut their stuff, and it’s an effort to squeeze through.
It’s worth it, though. Propelled by a driving rhythm section, the West Australian foursome are in the process of delivering an intense set of songs. Nominally billed as swamp rock, they come across as epic and sweeping. The songs sprawl like some crumbling gothic castle, littered with crazed violin and wild guitars. The lyrics are indecipherable, sometimes falsetto, sometimes not, punctuated with weird moaning or stabs of saxophone. On this sort of form, Roman Polanski should get in touch with these people when he wants to make a sequel to Rosemary’s Baby.
Back outside, The Walkmen mesh wonderfully with the balmy weather of another Brisbane afternoon. They begin brightly – their retro-tinged guitars evoking a distinct 50s feel and images of shiny chrome car fenders. Full of nostalgia, Another One Goes By features some lovely plucked guitar, while Lost in Boston picks up the pace with more rootsy toms and the introduces some novelty gourd action. But something seems to go missing from the New Yorkers’s sound once Hamilton Leithauser discards his guitar at the start of Little House of Savages, and the tail end of the set just fizzles.
“It’s hotter here than Mexico City,” Camera Obscura’s Tracyanne Campbell tells us back inside the Zoo. “It’s not right.” Too right. Maybe the Glaswegians have been hit by the heat, but they never quite make it out of first-gear. Muddy vocals don’t help when you’re singing maudlin indie-pop that’s supposed to tug at the heart, though.
Swedish ensemble Peter, Bjorn and John make their appearance on the Laneway stage off the back of a long keys intro that morphs into Let’s Call it Off. They’ve brought along the party antics and bounce energetically around the stage, but, for the most part, the crowd is either too indie-rock sophisticated or too lazy to follow suit. The lilting keyboards and harmonica of Paris 2004 offers a beautiful pop moment that gets a knot of girls dancing in a circle, but predictably it’s the signature whistling of Young Folks that finally brings the crowd alive.
The Archie Bronson Outfit may not draw the biggest audience of the day, but they certainly have one of the most enthusiastic. Folk near the stage writhe delightedly as the Englishmen pump out a speed-fuelled blues-rock assault full of selections from 2006 long-player Derdang Derdang. The Zoo pulsates as the bearded trio crank songs such as Dart for my Sweetheart and Dead Funny to ear-bending intensity. Drummer Mark Cleveland snarls, sweats and beats his kit unrelentingly, setting up stunning rhythms with bassist Dorian Hobday while Sam Windett layers impassioned vocals and wailing guitar over the top. By the end we’re all a-lather, but another song or two wouldn’t have gone astray at all.
An hour could never be long enough for Hoboken indie-rock legends Yo La Tengo to display their musical eclecticism, but that doesn’t stop the trio from trying as they share around the vocal duties.
Ira Kaplan’s vocals and guitar lead the way and Big Day Coming shivers and squalls. Guided by the hushed vocals of Georgia Hubley, The Weakest Part laps gently at the ears and then the jaunty piano of Mr Tough brings in some bounce, even if Ira and bassist James McNew struggle to reach the high notes with their falsetto duet.
James’ delicious bass riff propels the marvelously titled Pass the Hatchet, I think I’m Goodkind while Ira uses liberal doses of palm muting, feedback and sustain to ad lib an instrumental conversation. Beanbag Chair runs to quirky pop-rock, and the simple piano of I Feel like Going Home conjures a sad ache as Georgia reclaims the vocals.
But it’s concluding tune The Story of Yo la Tango that captures the imagination tonight. The theme builds gently, deceptively. Then over the final 10 minutes or so Ira bends it massively out of shape taking his guitar on a frenzied dance of dissonance, feedback and cacophony that cascades over the crowd all the way to the end.
