Live Review: Laneway Festival

Once considered a boutique festival, the Sydney leg of the Laneway Festival, which started its life as an alternative to the better known festivals, has taken on a life of its own as a venue that showcases a broad mix of up-and-coming indie/pop/hip hop and alt. flavoured music, a lot of acts having never been to Australia before, and this year's event, held again within the hot but breezy surrounds of the SCA in Rozelle, was another sell out success.

Cass McCombs was one of the earlier acts to draw many people's attention, a lot of them commenting that his alt-country set was well received.

The young and feisty Archy Marshall, who also goes by the names King Krule and Ginger Meggs, was another notable up-and-comer who, for someone so young, displayed a commanding stage presence, making his indie-hop look like something he and his bandmates do in their sleep. The single, Easy Easy, off last year's debut, Six Feet Beneath The Moon, was a crowd favourite.

Speaking of crowd favourites, Melbourne's Dick Diver were welcomed with open arms to the Courtyard Stage but an otherwise good set was marred somewhat by a few sound issues and bass guitar failure, the latter causing a few songs to get shafted in the process. However, it didn't stop the four-piece from punching out the mega hits Alice, Calendar Days and Head Back, drawing a well-received response.

Fresh from his Hottest 100 win and recent signing to Atlantic Records, Vance Joy's cruisey acoustic crooning drew lots of the kids, opening with the love song From Afar, and accompanied by a reserved backing contingent.

Adalita maintained the pain, chugging through plenty of '90s-inspired riffs and finishing with an extended outro of wailing guitars and drums, looking every bit the rockstar she did when she started out roughly 20 years ago, and perhaps a little more stoked with the continuing support of the dedicated and sizeable fanbase who were present.

Jagwar Ma drew one of the bigger crowds over at the Future Classic stage though their re-branded alt-pop got something of a mixed response judging by some audience comments, which ranged from “excellent” to “self-indulgent”. Still, their tunes were catchy enough to get a lot of people excited.

At the same time, the Brooklyn-based quartet Parquet Courts were re-naming the stage the Parquet Courtyard Stage for playing one of the highlight sets of the day. Not only did they sport a Beck lookalike in guitarist Austin Brown, their songs were reminders of well thought-out, fist in the air American punk rock, complete with a replacement drummer for regular Max Savage. Highly recommended if you're able to get to one of their sideshows.

Back over at the main stages, which has to be said had a great amphitheatre-type set-up for which the organisers should be patting themselves on the shoulder, Kurt Vile and his Violators were a treat, getting into some songs off the Wakin' On A Pretty Daze release from last year and showing what a relaxed-type dude he is.

The Jezabels. Pic by Jodie Mathews.

Detroit's Danny Brown continued the US invasion of Laneway, the established hip hop artist from Detroit ensuring he and his rhymes and street beats were supplied with full force. The sound was fantastic and his stuttering, vocally high stutter made it hard not to krump along.

Earl Sweatshirt, just one more impossibly young and stage-comfortable artist, was another highlight of the day, a) for sharing floor space with Archy Marshall for a track, and b) for the LA Lakers Jersey-toting hype guy who had a mic but didn't do much apart from jump.

Savages' gothic appearance and down-tempo tunes were visually enjoyable, the music and sound equally so, although some in the crowd were complaining of a lack of engagement.

The reasons for Grammy winner and whole of stage occupier Lorde's phenomenal rise were on display at the main stage and expectedly drew once of the biggest crowds of the day. It was another flawless show from the youngest of young artists at the festival and there was no denying it was a mesmerising performance, even if her type of music isn't necessarily your bag.

The very reliable and oft' missed expats Cloud Control gave a measured performance, choosing a bunch of well-known hymns, and looked very relaxed, happy and comfortable on the main stage, receiving in equal measure cheers and positive responses following treacle-pop songs like Gold Canary and This Is What I Said.

Unknown Mortal Orchestra got a rousing reception as part of their return to a Sydney stage, knocking out numbers from the very good II album released early last year. Former frontman of the Mint Chicks, Ruban Nielson demonstrated not only his gift as a great songwriter with a great ear for a hook, but his deft ability on the guitar was pretty special too, particularly on So Good At Being In Trouble.

Fresh from their hibernation The Jezabels' showing at the festival didn't disappoint the legions of their faithful fanbase, who lapped up every minute of what was again something that may not be your bag but was seamless from sound to lights to showmanship.

Overall, another spectacular day/night of great food, short beer lines (thank you pay pass!) and amazing music dominated partly by an uncanny class of fresh performers.