Live Review: Laneway Sydney

Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy, it's Laneway 2018! Here's to hoping it doesn't rain. Let's sink some cheeky, overpriced tinnies, watch some bands and try to avoid sunstroke.

Laneway is held at the beautiful Sydney College Of The Arts campus at Callan Park. It's typically known for its good vibes and for having slightly fewer dickheads than your average festival, which was more or less the case this year too. We rocked up just in time to witness triple j Unearthed artist Exhibitionist, aka Kirsty Tickle, kicking things off in a big way and having drawn a pretty impressive crowd so early in the day for her efforts. Pairing some dreamy but powerful vocals with moments of choreographed contemporary dance worked a treat and created some pretty powerful imagery. Her closing track, Being A Woman, was reason enough to check Tickle out alone — a furious rager of a song and an explosively cathartic conclusion to the set.

Three-piece Cable Ties kicked off with a Welcome To Country and followed up with some relentless garage band, punk rock, whose Strokes-esque bass lines saw the crowd having a very good time. The set was a showcase of their self-titled debut from last year, which is worthy of being dropped into your 'Pump Me Up' playlist. They're the kind of band that used the first set break to announce who in the band had and had not yet done a post-coffee poo, which, personally, I appreciated.

Shame braved the hot Australian sun despite fears that it was "no good for our English, pale, fragile skin", bringing their particular brand of chaotic rock to the spinning top stage. Making their way through their 2018 release Songs Of Praise, they had one of the most exuberant, domineering stage presences of the day. The set climaxed when the lead singer found his way into the front row to sing the rest of the verse into some poor bloke's cheek. Not sure if the guy was into it, but also maybe it was the best day of his life?

Dream Wife were energetic and fun and super bloody badass. They opened with a track that reminiscent of The 5.6.7.8's. Catchy riffs, great energy and just some solid, killer tunes that had the whole gang singing along.

Sixteen-year-old Billie Eilish sauntered on stage in a red tracksuit, with a Gucci purse strapped around her waist, to the sounds of everyone losing their fucking shit. For the first two songs, the girls in the front row did the singing for her as the sound team tried to figure out why her mic wasn't working. "Oh my god, what a trainwreck..." was the first thing we heard from Eilish once they sorted it out. What followed though was some of the most phenomenal pipes of the day. With her mum filming on her iPhone from side of stage, Eilish owned the set, being infinitely cooler than I (even being ten years her senior) ever was or will be. She covered Hotline Bling on the ukelele, rapped Vince Staples verse in &burn, and finished up with crowd favourite Ocean Eyes. Ya girl brought it, and was a highlight of the festival.

US duo Sylvan Esso brought the afternoon dance party and it was very well received. Lead singer Amelia Meath would probably win best dance moves of the festival, and there was some pretty stiff competition. Die Young and Coffee, two crowd favourites from their 2017 release What Now, closed off the set. It was getting real sunny now, and the courtyard was getting hit hard - a lot of squinters, possibly some heavy burning to come. We questioned where those guys running around with the sunscreen were?

The Internet prepped the stage by having the resident incense roadie cleanse away the bad vibes and it must have worked because vibes were excellent. Playing heaps from Ego Death, they also managed to slot in tracks from each of their solo works. Syd The Kyd definitely trained us in the art of screaming "You fucked up" for Just Sayin/I Tried. Special shout out to Steve Lacy's super dope red overalls.

Anderson .Paak was definitely the audience favourite, drawing huge crowds for his twilight set - and man, did he deliver. Opening with Come Down, in case you thought he was gonna ease into it, .Paak and his band The Free Nationals killed their way through the best bits of Venice and Malibu with a couple little treats littered in - a taste of The Next Episode and R Kelly's Ignition being particular highlights. The set really got wild when old mate .Paak jumped behind the drums. "Make some noise if you love your mamma," he called after a particularly impressive thrashing. The crowd goes wild. "Yeah - I love your mamma too." Class act, .Paak, you got us mate.

Bonobo was exactly the vibe we all needed after that Anderson .Paak set. Starting chill and building into some epic swelling climaxes, Simon Green impressed the crowd, showing off by swapping between different instruments as the set went on. Backed by a big ol' band for most of it, he finished the set alone on stage, which was somehow even more epic.

Odesza was very hard to not dance through, starting off accompanied by six hooded drummers with neon drums like some kind of space high school marching band, it was a feast for the eyes as much as for the ears. In fact, overall the set was a bit of a visual extravaganza.

The War On Drugs and POND played their sets at the same time, so you either had to make a choice or cheekily sneak to half of each. The vibes couldn't have been more different, with The War On Drugs bringing the energetic rock and POND cooling us down (in a very good way) with their sweet, sweet mellow psych. Both stages were at capacity, where are all these people coming from?

TOKiMONSTA finished off the night for this reviewer with what was basically a DJ set with a couple originals dropped in here and there. This seemed to be exactly what we all needed though and she definitely knows her way around a banger.

Well Laneway, you bloody did it. Killer line-up, with a bunch of rad bands killing it, sounding good and giving everyone a good time. Thank you for not raining, what a treat!