Laneway

Now in its 3rd year, the Brisbane St Jeromes Laneway Festival has had a rather extensive facelift. This year saw a new venue, sponsors and direction. Having been to the original site of the Melbourne St Jeromes Laneway, one can't help but think the organisers have shot themselves in the foot with this years venue change (being that Alexandria St is hardly a fucking laneway) and the fact that the larger venue did not sell out. Four Thousand and Red Bull Music Academy jumped on board as sponsors this year, which was a refreshing change. All things aside, let the reviewing begin.

We arrived just in time (With medium to severe Gin Sweats) to see Pivot take to the Car Park Stage (which was under a freeway of some sort?). They played a pretty tight set, although you couldn't help but think they were taking the piss out of the crowd at times with their "Australia...yeahhh!" antics. They played some of "Make Me Love You" but focused more on "O Soundtrack". "In the Blood" and "O Soundtrack" to finish were standouts.

From there we stumbled onto Tim Fite at the Red Bull Stage (best stage ever, Red Bull you own my heart). Really, really odd blend of hip hop with DIY powerpoint presentation about stabbing cat sandwiches? Very strange.

Ran over to see Born Ruffians starting their set at the Alexandria St stage. Poor little skinny Canadians were very sunburnt and sweaty. Absolutely stellar performance nonetheless. They had a very interesting stage set up with all 3 of them in line putting them in direct sunlight. They were really appreciative of the small crowd that gathered. Ended with Hummingbird (of course).

I have never believed the hype about No Age so I watched them from the bar however they did surprise me a little bit (definitely pissed I missed Port O'Brien though!!) although they didn't live up the blog-tastic media they attained in 2K8 with their thrashy, lo-fi punk. Reasonable set. Although Darren Spunk has a pretty sweet name and he cruised around with Jay Reatard afterwards and spoke to a few people.

Around about this time Jonny, Alicia and I made our way to the Red Bull stage to settle in as we didn't really want to move from there for the rest of the night. Harmonic 313 was incredible. This is the solo project Global Communication’s Mark Pritchard. He fuses “Detroit-Style” Instrumental Hip-Hop with a touch of b-more funk and even threw in a little bit of dubstep. Really interesting set and got us all ready for Rusko who was up next.

Rusko is probably the skinniest little geezer ever (and has a rats tail, although I didn't hate him straight away...odd). With one of my most played tracks at the moment being his remix of Kid Sister's 'Pro Nails', he did not disappoint. He had so much energy and played a killer set of really left field dubstep along with some very dance-able crumping beats. Stand out was him playing an insane remix of Fatboy Slim's "What The Fuck" that I'd never heard before.

Straight after that was Four Tet. My god, words cannot describe how good he was. He was so calm and pleasant. Stand outs were "Ringer", "Pockets" and "A Joy" (Fuck, A Joy was so good). He was just phenomenal. Jonny told me that when he sent his latest album to get mastered they did little to nothing to it. And anyone who saw him live can attest to that.

About this stage I lost everyone, however there was no way I was missing El Guincho. He took to the stage accompanied by a percussionist (a little bit disappointing there wasn't a steel drum in sight). He ran through most of Alegranza hitting all of his spanish high notes. There was a really happy vibe throughout the albeit tiny crowd. ***Many thanks to Bridget for being my El Guincho friend and now lays claim the to owner of the hottest thing any girl has ever said to me at a festival "Drink up, I'm going to get you another beer".

Found everyone and we joined the 30 or so other people who weren’t at Girltalk and got ready for Buraka Som Sistema. So glad I didn't go to Girltalk, Buraka were so good. They were so appreciative of the small crowd and had just the right amount of energy. Because it was a Dj/Mc set they only touched on a few tracks from "From Buraka to the World Ep" and "Black Diamond" but were entertaining nonetheless. Ended with their version of Snap!'s "Rhythm is a Dancer" which evoked a little bit of nostalgia and everyone remembered the 90's trance era.

MEMORABLE MOMENTS:

- Jax being a human walking billboard for Future Music Festival...FREE TRANCE, GET YOUR FREE TRANCE!!
- Really good chicken satays that managed to stain our teeth.
- Tiger being the beer sponsor for the festival.
- Jax and Jess getting their blood pressure taken for no reason.
- Alicia's quote "Omg all I can see is Pre-Pixie Geldoff...EVERYWHERE!!"
- The world's longest human barrel.
- The arse smacking competition.
- Alicia and Jax having the same taste in women.
- Jonny meeting Rusko, Alicia meeting Four Tet, Jax meeting Buraka.
- Drinking tallies in the street and being convinced that Leonardo from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was beneath us.
- Hustling a shirt to get into Ric's.
- The girls in Ric's.
- Plymouth and tonics at Ric's.
- Getting kicked out of Ric's.