Once again, the laneway festival comes through with a great day. I went with Vanessa this year, and we linked up with David and Justine (and, with them for a while, Wendy L) pretty quickly. As usual, lots of familiar faces - hooked up for a while with a girl I'd met in passing at the Australia Day croquet picnic (Ellie [sp?] - a friend of Michelle's, I think), briefly touched base with Vera and waved at an ex-seasonal clerk (one Cassidy) from the toilet queue, etc. Crowd colourful and friendly - there was a lot of smiling happening. Taking public transport to and fro was a good move as it allowed me to drink which, it has to be said, definitely improved the experience.
The first two bands I saw, I'd both seen in the past, supporting others. Love of Diagrams (who curtain-raised for either Interpol or Pretty Girls Make Graves when I saw them a few years back - I can't recall which) were, as I'd remembered them to be, angular and rockin' and pretty darn good. I don't remember them having as much in the way of vocals as they did today, but memory can play funny tricks, and besides their sound may well have evolved; anyhow, the whole package has more than a bit of Sleater-Kinney (mid-period) to it now, which is no bad thing. Then Bumblebeez, who were heckled throughout when opening for Radiohead back in '03 [?], but here were quite endearing with their fun-oriented hip-hop/rock hybrid thing.
Saw the second half of the Archie Bronson Outfit set and enjoyed it - three bearded guys banging out hectic, vaguely asthmatic guitar rock. Then Camera Obscura, who were very nice though their sound didn't travel particularly well in the laneway setting (they did do a delightful "Let's Get Out of the Country") - I always feel as if I should listen to them properly, and seeing their show hasn't pushed me particularly in either direction.
Only caught the middle part and some of the end of Love Is All, which is kind of a shame because, based on what I did hear of it, their set was one of the highlights of the day. I haven't retained a strong impression of what the band actually sounded like (there was a saxophone and a girl singer, neither of which I'd expected) but they were darn good.
After that, Youth Group and the Sleepy Jackson, both of which were loved by the crowd but neither of which did particularly much for me - the former had a few decent songs but seemed a bit middle-of-the road, and while the latter definitely knew how to sell what they had, I still found their music a bit underwhelming.
Then came the Walkmen, who were good and, with "The Rat" produced one of only about three songs that got some serious crowd singalong happening (the others being "Forever Young" and "Young Folks"). When listening to their albums, I'm always struck by the scratchiness of the band's sound, which comes not just from the singer's voice but from everything else as well, and I've sometimes wondered whether it was a production thing or just a music thing (I've also wondered whether I'd find their music more satisfying if they had a fuller sound going, though possibly it would lose some of the urgent edginess in the process)...anyway, in light of that, it was interesting that the same wavery-ness was shot through their live set, producing a similar response from me. But they rocked pretty hard and yeah, theirs was probably my favourite set of the day.
Riding the good energy, next up was Peter, Bjorn & John, who were pretty good, but I didn't get much of a sense as to what they were really about (a bit of pop, a bit of rock and plenty of melody, but it was all kinda muffled). After that, went upstairs to see a bit of Ground Components (who were shambolic and rough-edged and exciting (and, in the case of the singer, skinny and topless)) but by then was feeling that it was time to move on, and so I did.
>> 2005
>> 2006
