Laneway Festival Sydney 2010
Sydney College of the Arts, Rozelle
Sunday, 31st January, 2010
Laneway Festival has come and gone for another year, and even after all the changes – and lack of an actual laneway – I can safely say it’s still my favourite festival. They always manage to get the line-up just right, maybe even “too right” this year, as there were lots of timetable clashes! The atmosphere is very chilled, and the crowd is full of lots of friends and familiar faces from Sydney’s music scene.
This year the setting moved away from the CBD to the Sydney College of the Art’s campus at Rozelle, yep the site of an old mental asylum (hence the naming of the Inner Sanctum stage). The setting was pretty and definitely more spacious than the Reiby Place site, which of course meant that the crowd size increased. Yes I would have preferred for it to stay nice and small as it was (I am one of those people mentioned in this Mess & Noise review), and I understand it had to move, but I do miss the intimacy of the laneway, the crowded sweatiness of the Basement and the beauty of the Park Stage. What made Laneway special to me was the organisers turned a mundane CBD setting into a really engaging site for a day, and you’ll be happy to know some of that specialness has carried over to the new site which consists of an array of stages housed in between beautiful old sandstone buildings. The Clocktower stage was funnily enough near a clocktower (no actual clock though) and the main stage was the Car Park stage (not sure if it’s actually a car park by day) felt like a big town square.
My day began with a walk around the grounds to suss out the stages, passing by Seekae at the Clock Tower, running into Katie near the Merch stand, and seeing Oh Mercy at the Car Park. I hung out in the shade as my friends watched this year’s Modular offspring Jonathan Boulet at the Inner Sanctum stage. I haven’t given him much of a chance to be honest, just steering clear of all that hype, but the girls liked his indie-skater-boy-from-Castle-Hill ways.
Next up was our three-way dilemma of Frightened Rabbit, Whitley and The Middle East. Not wanting to miss out on any of those delicious musical treats we were going to attempt all three. Starting off with the Scottish band Frightened Rabbit, who come with a lot of praise from Wayne. I really liked them but was probably a bit distracted catching up with friends at this early stage of the day. From here some of us departed to The Middle East but I got distracted by the sounds of Whitley drawing me into the Inner Sanctum with his Bright White Lights. I’m positive I wasn’t the only girl in the crowd distracted by Whitley’s charms. The best part of Whitley though was catching up with Kim! It really was that sort of festival, where you run into friends and family, or in this case both.
Sticking around the Inner Sanctum I caught Wild Beasts’ set. I love their song All The King’s Men, so was very happy when that made an appearance. I didn’t realise that I recognised a few of the their other songs, like their early hit The Devil’s Crayon. The much-anticipated, much-hyped and much-loved Mumford & Sons were next on the main stage. The boys didn’t disappoint either, proving their brand of indie-folk is even better live. Their set included tracks from their wonderful debut Sigh No More, and of course half way through the set they brought out the crowd pleaser and recent Triple J Hottest 100 number one track Little Lion Man. I was very grateful for this mid-set appearance, because it meant I could hurry back to the Inner Sanctum to catch the rest of fellow Brits The XX’s set. This stage was packed, but it was well worth seeing this foursome, whose boy/girl vocals I adore. Back again to the main stage to see the always reliable Sarah Blasko, once again in fine form playing mostly from last year’s mighty As Day Follows Night.
Here’s where the night takes a sinister turn, well not really sinister I was just hungry as hell, and all the food lines were incredibly long, and after twenty minutes of waiting, with the food line barely moving we thought we would try for a packet of chips from the bar, but alas they were sold out too, and with Dappled Cities about to play I had but no choice to skip food altogether at this point.
Of course all this was forgotten once Dappled Cities came bouncing on stage in gold, lycra suits – yes GOLD, LYCRA SUITS! Stunning just stunning, exactly what I needed to distract me from my hunger. This boys are so much fun love, and the added bonus of skin-tight costumes only added to the party. They played lots of material from their recent album Zounds, but Dappled also had a surprise up their sleeve. The lovely Sarah Blasko took to the stage and joined them for a duet of Vision Bell from their second album Granddance. Blasko and the boys on the one stage was just heaven, it sounded fabulous too, I’ve never thought of that track as a duet before but it worked really amazingly.
Headling the main stage this year was Florence & the Machine. I wasn’t really sure they were big enough to be the closing act, but with four tracks in this year’s Hottest 100, they were well loved. We were right at the back of the car park for this set, and so it lacked the atmosphere and energy we probably should have been feeling for the final act. Having said that Florence was still divine. The girl has a set of Lungs on her indeed! Her soaring voice is her strong suit, and it went down a treat through all her hits including Drumming Song, Kiss with a Fist, Rabbit Heart and Dog Days Are Over.
And with that the day was done, and it was off to Macca’s to get some food…at last!
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Improvements for next year please: MORE FOOD outlets (because when given the choice between staying in the queue for another 20 minutres for dinner and missing Dappled, the answer is always going to be – starve and see Dappled!), MORE TOILETS at the other end of the site (Having toilets at only one end of the site is not practical) and MORE SHADE if possible – it was hot out in the sun, kudos for the tables and chairs in parts of the grounds, though some extra shelter would be nice!
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The Car Park Stage
The Inner Sanctum Stage
The Clocktower Stage
Frightened Rabbit
Whitley
Wild Beasts
Mumford & Sons
Mumford & Sons
The XX
Dappled Cities - Tim
Dappled Cities - Dave
Dappled Cities - Dave
Dappled Cities - Tim
Sarah Blasko & Dappled duet
Sarah Blasko singing "Vision Bell" with Dappled
Sarah Blasko & Dappled duet
Dappled Cities - Tim
Dappled Cities - Tim
