Having been to the last two Laneways in Brisbane, both of them since the move from something that resembled an actual lane to some cattle sheds and a covered outside car park, my third experience of the festival was by far and away the most disappointing.
The weather definitely put a dampener on the day but the main issues were the programming of the bands through the day, which sometimes meant no bands playing at other times three bands all starting at almost the same time, and truly awful sound for just about ever band on every stage. This year it wasn’t only putting on the bands in corrugated cattle sheds, as the sound on the outside Car Park stage was just as bad. When Brisbane doesn’t get much (if anything on some occasions, such as when Laneway’s in town) in the way of festival sideshows and 40 minute festival sets are all that’s on offer to us as a way to see an act every few years, having to endure such shocking sound throughout is a real insult. Feist (who also suffered the indignity of getting electric shocks from her microphone commented that this was her first time in Brisbane since she played Laneway four years ago and at the end said “See you in another four years”. If this is all that promoters are going to offer in the way of international acts, it’s a real two fingers up at Brisbane’s music fans.
And of course that’s without mentioning M83 being 50 minutes late. Having planned to photograph them from the photo pit and then see a bit of Washed Out and John Talabot and try and shoot both of them from the crowd I was fuming. I didn’t expect Kanye West’s festival lateness record from only six days ago to be broken so soon but it at least someone told us from the stage what the problem was (even if they were lying about Kanye starting being one minute away). Of course when M83 do start, they largely play in the dark (for the two songs I stick around for). Packing up my bag I was fuming at how the day had ended.
My day looked like this, although I believe the GPS tracking even less than I did last week at the Big Day Out as it show me somehow managing to cross Gregory Terrace and also has me in backstage places that I didn’t go anywhere near. I’m guessing the being inside and the covered Car Park stage area meant my phone had trouble with the GPS signal. I could believe the 6.61 km for the day though.
View Laneway 2012 1/28/12 12:22 PM in a larger map
Total distance: 6.61 km
Total time: 8:42:32
Moving time: 7:27:48
Max speed: 10.53 km/hr
Average speed: 0.76 km/hr
Average moving speed: 0.89 km/hr
Min elevation: -56m
Max elevation: 79m
Elevation gain: 237m
Min grade: -14.9%
Max grade: 34.9%
As with last week some strange elevation figures that had me finding a large hole in the ground somewhere at some point during the day.
The lowlights have been covered above. Highlights? Anna Calvi, Cults being a whole lot better than I thought they would be live, The Drums impressing me again as they did at Splendour in 2010 and DZ showing how far they’ve come along since when I first saw them playing a 1am show at The Troubadour in the first half of 2009.
A proper blog post (or three) to come at some point, but in the meantime some photos from the day are on The Vine.
Leave a Reply