| LANEWAY FESTIVAL - 2012 review. |
| Written by Sarah Mudgway |
| Sunday, 05 February 2012 14:48 |
 They say that the third time is a charm... I’m not sure who ‘they’ are, but for LANEWAY FESTIVAL - at least in terms of 2012's line-up - this statement certainly rang true, with the festival’s third visit to our shores pulling some of the best artists the indie/alt scene currently has to offer. Filled with an eccentric mix of indie-folk, 80’s influenced ‘chillwave’ and superstar songstresses, Auckland’s Silo Park transformed from its usual concrete jungle of car-parks, to a concrete jungle of feathers-in-hair and beer-in-hand music appreciators. With twenty-two acts scheduled across three stages, the day kicked off with local act OPOSSOM - the new project of The Mint Chicks' Kody Nielson. Bringing his girlfriend and well-respected musician Bic Runga along for the ride, New Zealand’s own musical powerhouse couple, alongside a guitarist, entertained the eager crowd who had shown up as the gates opened with their unique brand of laid-back indie rock. With their debut album due out in a few months, this will undoubtedly only be the beginning of Opossom’s ascent.  EMA’s Erika M. Anderson - dressed in an oversized blue t-shirt with a handwritten “Why Be Beautiful?” on the front - was next to take the stage. She surprised the audience with her awareness of perhaps New Zealand’s most unlikely town to gain attention, Gore - asking the audience if anyone had attended Gore High School. The singer-songwriter and her backing-band were a little lacklustre for my own personal taste, but as she launched into ‘California’ there was musical beauty matched with equal amounts of chaos as she sang the memorable “Fuck California, you made me boring...” through the speakers.  Click HERE to view more live EMA photos.  While local newcomers TRANSISTORS were entertaining the crowd gathered at Park Lane, Toronto natives AUSTRA were stunning the Penny Lane crowd with their distinctive brand of electro-meets-opera. Lead vocalist Katie Stelmanis’ background in high school choirs and operatic singing was obvious, and alongside her backup singers/dancers Sari and Romy Lightman (yes, they are twins!) they made their way through tracks such as ‘Beat And The Pulse’ from their critically acclaimed debut album, 'Feel It Break'. While at times the floaty dancing of the Lightman twins took away some of the magic from Stelmanis’ voice, when the three girls took to the microphone for some harmonies, there was nothing that could have distracted me away.  Click HERE to view more live AUSTRA photos.  [ N.B. Due to the scheduling of our Laura Marling interview/photoshoot, only a third of Coup De Main got to watch literally thirty seconds of CULTS live. This is completely unrepresentative and disproportionate to how much we love the band. Believe me, we cried. ]  Click HERE to view more live CULTS photos.  The critically acclaimed artists just kept on coming, with 2011 Brit Award winner LAURA MARLING charming the biggest audience of the day so far with her powerful voice and catchy country-infused folk-pop. Seeming genuinely pleased to finally have made it across the globe to New Zealand, Marling may be pint-sized but her voice is something special. Playing a variety of songs from all of her releases such ‘I Was Just A Card’ from last year's 'A Creature I Don’t Know' and ‘Rambling Man’ from 2010’s 'I Speak Because I Can'.  Click HERE to view more live LAURA MARLING photos.  Also hailing from the UK, YUCK were the next band of the day for me... or as I now like to call them, The Denim Brigade (never have I seen so much denim being worn on one stage!). The band launched into ‘Holing Out’ followed by ‘The Wall’, but unfortunately issues with sound prevented their vocals from really finding their way through the mix until mid-way through their set, however, the growing number of loyal fans up the front happily sang and danced along anyway, creating for a great vibe in the burning sun.  Click HERE to view more live YUCK photos.   Click HERE to view more live WASHED OUT photos. You know what you’re in for when a band takes the stage with iPad in hand... synth-fuelled ‘chillwave’ act WASHED OUT a.k.a. the stage-name of unemployed science graduate turned musician Ernest Green, entertained the sprawled-out masses and was a great lead into the next act, TWIN SHADOW. Performing tracks such as ‘Shooting Holes’ and ‘Tyrant Destroyed’ from his debut album 'Forget', George Lewis Jr. impressed with his numerous guitar solos and smooth vocals. Less smooth however, was the extreme PDA that I witnessed between him and who I suspect was his girlfriend, later that night.   Click HERE to view more live TWIN SHADOW photos.  For me, the highlight of the day was always going to be Canadian singer-songwriter superstar Leslie FEIST. Every time Broken Social Scene would play New Zealand, I’d hoped Feist would make the trip... and finally, she'd made it to New Zealand on her own and it was every bit as incredible as I’d always imagined it would be. Showing her sense of humour by asking the audience to rate how well they could hear her “on a scale of one to ten” before kicking off into her opening song of the set, ‘A Commotion’. Feist powered her way through her forty-five-minute set, letting nothing get in her way of having a great time on her first trip to NZ. Dedicating ‘How Come You Never Go There’ to New Zealand, and giving a welcomed shout-out to her Kiwi drummer before performing ‘I Feel It All’, the sense of excitement coming from the stage translated into one of the more enthusiastic crowds of the day, culminating in one hell of a great time.  Click HERE to view more live FEIST photos. Personal highlights: Feist leading the crowd in a mass sing-a-long when her microphone cut out during ‘How Come You Never Go There’, commenting “If any of you have a trombone in your pocket this would be a great time to pull it out” before launching into ‘Graveyard', and TORO Y MOI being desperately chased by security as he roller-skated down the photo pit mid-way through Feist's set.  Click HERE to view more live TORO Y MOI photos.  THE HORRORS continued on the good times with their energetic set, which in my opinion, completely out-shined their first New Zealand performance at 2010’s Big Day Out by a long-shot. Playing all the fan favourites from their last two albums, including the epic ‘Sea Within A Sea’ from their 'Primary Colours' album and ‘Still Life’ from 'Skying', a small part of me was hoping they would surprise us all with a track or two from their first release 'Strange House'... but with their set as good as it was, there’s no way that I could have left in any way disappointed.   Click HERE to view more live THE HORRORS photos.   Click HERE to view more live SBTRKT photos  M83 and Gotye were the last two acts to close out the Penny and Cherry Lane stages... and they could not have been any more different. M83’s impressive [and loud!] dance anthems had people dancing in literally every place you could think of - in front of the stage, in the line for the toilets, and even the staff manning the beer coupons tent - no matter where you were, it was difficult to escape the dance and awe-inspiring set from the French act. Performing tracks such as ‘Steve McQueen’, ‘Midnight City’ and ‘Kim & Jessie’, it was easy to see how the act has grown increasingly in popularity over recent times, and I’d be intrigued to see how their live show is altered in an indoor setting.  Click HERE to view more live M83 photos. GOTYE has experienced a pretty recent rise in popularity as well, but it seemed for a lot of the crowd at Laneway, the Australian act who has taken over the radio all over the world wasn’t worth their time (or maybe everyone had danced away all their energy, who knows). As M83 finished up their set, getting from the food stands to the stage to catch Gotye’s set, was like a fish swimming upstream - near impossible. The crowds were flooding out, with only a portion of those there for M83 remaining to catch Gotye close out the night. Performing songs such as ‘Eyes Wide Open’ and ‘Easy Way Out’, those expecting to see a surprise appearance from local lass Kimbra for hit single ‘Somebody That I Used To Know’ were left disappointed, however, that song was clearly the one people had stuck around for. As Silo Park emptied out and Laneway Festival 2011 came to a close, it’s hard to deny that the festival has swooped into the New Zealand market at just the right time. With the demise of Big Day Out, and the improvements Laneway have shown year after year in terms of line-up and amenities, I for one can’t wait to see what they do in 2013.  |
