Live Review: Laneway Festival

Split between four stages set within the increasingly amazing Perth Cultural Centre, Perth's incarnation of boutique indie calendar-smasher Laneway Festival was, in short, a blast. Path to Laneway winner Kucka greeted festival-goers on the Eat Your Own Ears stage, it was a pity her glacial beats were only met by the forerunner crowd - she could have held a listing three times the size. Without missing a beat, Polica's esoteric alt-rock compounded what Kucka started, setting down an early high standard for the 'Ears stage. Definitive Jux head EL-P's live hip hop outfit got limbs shaking, The Full Retard providing another early highlight, crashing cymbals and fast-paced rhymes raising temperatures even more. The keytar helped. A large buzz of excitement met Pond, their psych jam-outs being taken to the next level with the addition of 'the green man'. The band kept expanding their membership during the set, with a couple of the EL-P crew and Tame Impala's Kevin Parker joining in on the fun. Two-man rock attack-machine Japandroids saw the first real organizational craziness of the day, their supreme energy being transformed into an impressively chaotic moshpit that produced a constant string of crowd surfers being kicked out of the festival by some over-zealous security. This tarnished what was easily one of the standout sets of the day, including a radly raucous version of The House That Heaven Built. Nicolas Jaar's galactic grooves finished proceedings over at the 'Ears stage, Space is Only Noise if You Can See and some guitar-shredding making for a superb way to finish a heated day all round.

Filling up the sweltering Spiegeltent, LA chanteuse Julia Holter's rapturous and baroque alternative sounds provided some relief from the Amazonian heat. Jessie Ware's inner London sass provided a bombastic contrast, with a whirlwind drive through her charismatic debut LP Devotion. The Men quickly warmed up to what would be one of the surprise highlight gigs of the day. Their apparent looseness and rock'n'roll-as-fuck demeanour belied the fact that these were four talented dudes, and their passion for hearty rock came out through their musicianship. Eventually, the annoyingly small capacity of the Idolize Spiegeltent saw frustrations exploding when a mass of queue-jumpers busted past security to witness a joyous set from Cloud Nothings, eventually resulting in everyone being kicked out. The powers that be pulled everything Spiegeltent back together in time for Alpine, but the resulting gargatuan line excluded Drum's eyes from witnessing what transpired within.

The always impeccably dressed Rex Monsoon started the dancing at Derrick's with a tropical flavoured set, followed by Kit Pop's trademark splicing and dicing of future-oriented gangster biz. Ta-ku then took control, showing precisely why this local producer is blowing up internationally; he's dope. Cult beatmaker Shlohmo followed up with a pulsing, lugubrious performance that set the night alight with the fiery eyes of a hundred spliffs lit in unison.

Over at the Museum Stage, The Rubens were competing against the sun to get the crowd out of the shade, but My Gun and The Best We Got were enough to win out in the end with a resounding, ecstatic reception. Much like the one that met Of Monsters & Men, an obviously excited crowd piled straight down the alleyway to catch that band of the moment, Alt J. Suffice to say, with their casual and reserved entrance, not much could be heard over the crowd's screams and chants. Immediately launching into Intro, the band took the crowd right the way through all of An Awesome Wave. On top of that, Joe Newman's vocals were identical to the recorded version, much like the instrumentation. And on the subject of bands-dropping-albums live; triple j duke Flume gave the crowd what they wanted (i.e., a procedural playthrough of his debut album), and not much else. Both acts pleased crowds and executed their performances with aplomb, but a little live experimentation would have been welcome. Brooklyn four-piece Yeasayer have been a bit of a slow-burner since their debut release in 2007, but last year's Fragrant World was a big hit for them. It was obvious then that they would start off with a few choice tracks form that album, before thanking the crowd and moving into a heady mix of hits. Bat For Lashes' Natasha Khan gave Florence Welch's performance a few years back on the same stage a run for her money in the babin' department. Looking as resplendent in her crimson cloth as she sounded, Khan's early inclusion of the haunting What's A Girl To Do was truly mesmerizing.