Live Review: Laneway Festival

An announcement that Melbourne Laneway 2017 is now sold out is posted on the festival's Facebook page at 1.16pm. There's still a lotta congestion around the festival entrance (unless you're fortunate enough to have a PIP — Pretty Important Person — ticket) well after gates open.

On Dean Turner Stage, NAO (real name Neo Jessica Joshua) brings sunny, Happy, slap-bass vibes with her glorious vocals that sound nothing like her speaking voice, which is rather high pitched and comes as a complete surprise. The pace is nice and laid-back to ease us into proceedings and we groove gently to warm up our knee joints. Joshua's two-piece ensemble in vibrant print is on-trend, the Londoner's red ombre dreadies tying together her colour palette.

Ugh, note to self: Brighten smart phone screen prior to leaving the house. Standing in the bright sunshine trying to anticipate where the numbers for your password are on the screen for up to 15 minutes is the opposite of festival fun.

As we walk down Bunbury Street's steep incline toward the riverside stages, colourful murals by street artist Lushsux that pay tribute to fallen legends such as Bowie, Carrie Fisher, Leonard Cohen, Prince and St Jerome's Snr are an inspired touch.

It's delightful to discover frose is available at scattered bars throughout this Footscray site, but those can-only bars really don't offer enough variety so the craft beer bar is a good find en route to Future Classic Stage. The glittery synth goodness of GL (which pairs beatmaker Graeme Pogson with vocalist Ella Thompson) unfortunately doesn't translate too well into a live show at present. Thompson sports a white translucent cape over black outfit and a whole crew of dancers swarm the stage at one point. It's a little rock eisteddfod and whatever's going on up there just makes us wonder whether Chris Lilley's gonna pop out from the wings dressed as Ja'mie King for a guest appearance.

We're keen to check out what goes down in the blacksmiths this year, but sadly they're on their lunch break as we wander past and spy a handmade sign near the entrance that reads, "Back at 2.30pm".

Laneway Festival's support of Camp Cope's ItTakesOne campaign is unreal and we feel safe in the knowledge that if we see any fuckwit behaviour the hotline digits are easy to remember: 1800LANEWAY.

Over on the always-winning lush grassy amphitheatre surrounds of Spinning Top Stage, Nicholas Allbrook evokes Bowie. Rocking a shock of platinum locks these days, Allbrook's lyrics are always worth tuning in for and his guitar chops sure are impressive. He's also brought some friends along to add some extra flavour including Koi Child's brass section. Allbrook admits he's having hat envy when the horn players arrive on stage and one of them sports headwear; it would probably clash with Allbrook's navy Bonds Chesty anyway. Allbrook is a fascinating character and inspired performer in any manifestation.

Well aware that it's always an absolute shitfight trying to get to The Very West Stage (and realising that Tash Sultana really needs to be actually seen working her looping magic to be fully appreciated), we think we leave in plenty of time to hopefully grab a pukka posi. Given Sultana's Jungle polled at number three in triple j's Hottest 100 this year we know it'll be extra tricky. We wander up, remaining hopeful, during Welcome To Country — performed by Uncle Larry Walsh and the AB Original dudes today — and then the Mayor of Maribyrnong Catherine Cumming's address. Is this Cumming's suggestion (?): "If someone offers you ice, tell 'em to stick it up their arses!" Anyone out there ever shelved ice?

The Very West Stage continues to be a bloody nightmare. We persevere and keep moving through thinking we'll be rewarded with a better view only to keep walking until we're squished and still can't see a thing. We hear Sultana arrive on stage. "Wow, nice to be home. This is my backyard!" she extols before repeating the Mayor's ice quote, incredulously.

Memories of watching (but not actually seeing) The Smith Street Band on this very stage last year while even more punters tried to push past enter our brainboxes and we decide to abort, commencing the long trek back to the other stages. A colossal clusterfuck and mega-disappointing since we wanted to share Sultana's majesty with some folk who are yet to catch the supremely talented loopologist/rising star.

After walking against the tide for at least five minutes with punters pushing through while thinking they still have a hope of clapping eyes on Sultana, we really can't believe that nothing has been done about this stage despite repeated complaints over the years.

We change our entire festival schedule to completely avoid The Very West Stage, which sadly means sacrificing our main reason for attending Laneway's in the first place: Tame Impala's final shows before mastermind Kevin Parker moves onto his next project.

Insect in drink count: one.

Size: about the same as a sandfly.

Notable festival trend: body glitter. Everywhere. Which results in glitterfication whether you signed up for it or not.

We arrive back at Spinning Top Stage where Vancouver trio White Lung are onstage. They sound awesome on record, but we just can't get past the annoying lead singer, Mish Barber-Way. It's mainly the dance moves and specifically her arm movements, which call to mind some kind of bird with a massive wingspan.

Back to Future Classic Stage we head, via the blacksmiths. After peering inside and seeing sparks flying we decide the potential for disaster here is high so keep moving. Bob Moses on the line-up brings more Vancouverites to our shores in the form of Tom Howie and Jimmy Vallance. Maybe we're still sulking from having to sacrifice Sultana, but this electronic outfit kinda sound like shit Howard Jones. U-turn! Back to Spinning Top Stage for AB Original.

Briggs and Trials storm the stage and lead a rallying, "No Justice!" chant. There's also a "Melbourne, fuck the police!" inclusion. AB Original's music is vital and all happily sing along with their Like A Version take on Paul Kelly's Dumb Things. DJ Total Eclipse and Caiti Baker (who also features on Dead In A Minute and Sorry) are introduced by Briggs, but we all half expect Dan Sultan to hit the stage for his January 26 feat (he must have a gig on elsewhere?). AB Original's Reclaim Australia album kicks serious goals, but they could've packed even more of a punch on this day.

We try to access Dean Turner Stage from the top of Spinning Top Stage's viewing hill, but are told we can't cut through this way before being redirected aaaaaaaaall the way back down, across and then back up again. Fuck that! We may as well stay put and catch Sampa The Great, who has promised us a special treat during her set.

It's incredibly annoying to know that King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard are undoubtedly causing mayhem over on The Very West Stage, but we just can't go there. 

She totally blew us away at Sugar Mountain last year and Sampa The Great (Sampa Tembo on her birth certificate) is an important artist worth celebrating. With live band and a trio of backing vocalists, Sampa The Great's set is so much more than your usual hip hop set-up. Standout track Mona Lisa, a song specifically speaking to women and attempting to dispel the myth that we must compromise integrity in the pursuit of success, is empowering right down to the closing, "Shut up!" followed by cheeky giggles. Sampa The Great is an accomplished performance poet in the Kate Tempest domain. Her spoken word piece HERoes ("Who am I to be a hero? Who am I to not?") resonates. A sea of brightly patterned capes are dispersed through the crowd and wind up covering a large chunk of the hillside, as if an extension of Sampa The Great's patchwork fabric backdrop. These are the kinds of artists who deserve our attention, specifically right now when the world seems so fucked.

Shade is currency at this festival and moving over to allow someone into your shady patch guarantees new besties (at least for the set's duration). Although we search high and low for the Mr Miyagi food truck (we smashed three of their seaweed-encrusted tacos last year), it's nowhere to be seen. So we opt for Fonda, which is pretty basic (too much tasteless cabbage stuff in the tacos!)

How is it that time already? Must find a decent posi for Glass Animals! Dean Turner Stage is so much more accommodating (but it's still not cool to have to adjust your desired schedule because one of the stages is outta the question! Grrrrr...). And we're all hoping the tracks off How To Be A Human Being aren't potential toilet breaks when experienced live. Barefoot frontman Dave Bayley has taken to wearing baseball shirts these days so does that mean we can have dibs on his awesome silk bomber jacket collection? Season 2 Episode 3 gets us grooving, which makes us relax that it's not gonna be all 'I like your old stuff better than your new stuff'. Exhale. The boys are nailing it. Gooey is always gonna be a set highlight: "...those peanut butter vibes...", which makes us LOL remembering the misheard lyric that switched "vibes" for "thighs" — huh? But for this scribe it's really all about Pools and we dive into the dancing while keeping an eye on Bayley's daggy/cute moves. These dudes just get better every time they tour. It's a tropical full moon party high on kava. All we really want is a plectrum with Drew MacFarlane's face on it, though (check out the band's Insta). Hopefully at their Melbourne Town Hall sideshow? Pretty please?

Wandering toward the exit, we're still furious about The Very West Stage; it's high time Laneway found a new site, invested in more screens or handed out periscopes en route to that stage.