Photo: Tom Gilhespy
There’s something rather disconcerting about dashing to a festival, racing to get there just in time for the first of the bands that you really want to see, only to come across the lead singer of said band wandering down the street, looking as if he’s nipping out to find a cash point or perhaps even a spot of lunch. But as it turns out, there’s nothing to worry about. Lady Strangelove have been pushed a bit higher up the bill, so that Bridezilla can catch a flight down to Melbourne for another gig tonight.
As soon as they take the stage it’s obvious why the young Sydney band is in such demand. The name doesn’t promise anything much, and nor, to be honest, does the tatty-glam image. The four women in the band don’t look like bridezilla so much as her victims: tired and emotional wedding guests at the end of a long and drunken reception, still in their heels, but with laddered tights, dishevelled hair and frayed dresses. Their drummer looks as if he’s just arrived, but he’s bang on time, all the time. And the music is something else. It’s an unconventional line up by rock and roll standards (drums, rhythm and lead guitar, no bass, but violin and sax) yet it couldn’t sound more natural - everything fits together perfectly.
In its Adelaide incarnation, the Laneway Festival is a two-stage, indoor/outdoor affair, so after Bridezilla it’s out to the main stage for Okkervil River. By comparison, the Texans sound jaded and uninspiring, but it has to be said that their performance builds very nicely: by the end of their set they’ve won over a good portion of their much larger audience.
Meanwhile, Lady Strangelove have finished their errands and are setting about their next task with gusto. They’re a band that 
Gigwise has had the pleasure of raving about before, and there’s no choice but to do it again - somehow, they’ve improved. The psychedelic mayhem they specialise in is still getting harder and tighter, and the energy they pour into their show has gone up a few levels too. The new material in the set isn’t quite as polished as it might be just yet, but it’s only a matter of time, it’s certainly lean and muscular, despite their prog influences. Their extended jams could go on all day so far as an enthusiastic crowd is concerned, but sadly that’s not to be.
The next act, Stars, are the first and most forgettable members of a hefty Canadian contingent. It’s decent enough music for standing around in a yard drinking to, which is exactly what most of the audience does. Later on, Broken Social Scene use their fellow Canadians to great advantage. They’re decent enough on their own, especially with 'Fucked Up Kid', from Kevin Drew’s recent BSS-backed ‘solo’ album, but the more guests they add the better they become. Expanded from six to ten, with some Stars on horns and Feist on vocals, they’re nothing short of excellent.
By mid-afternoon, Laneway is starting to feel like a victim of its own success. The event started in Melbourne four years ago, tucked away in the city’s lanes and alleyways, and soon won a reputation for being one of the coolest festivals going. That reputation has seen Laneway spread around the country, and there’s a ready-made, sell-out crowd for the Adelaide debut. Despite the fact that we’re in a fairly large yard rather than one of Melbourne’s lanes, it’s almost impossible to move around. Worse, towards the back of an often uninterested crowd it’s difficult to hear the music for the number of people apologising to each other as they try to negotiate a route to the bars and food stalls.
The other big problem is that the main stage is running progressively later, while the indoor stage is keeping perfect time. We’re soon into reviewing hell, with both stages playing simultaneously, and neither of them offering anything worthwhile. Outside, The Panics and then Clap Your Hands Say Yeah manage to make the other stage seem very attractive, but none of the bands inside are even remotely as good.
Feist proves to be better than anything since Broken Social Scene, but she’s not quite as impressive as when she guested with them, largely because she seems so restrained in comparison. Still, at least there’s none of the dreariness that we’ve been subjected to for the past few hours. The highlight of the set proves to be not ‘1234’, her recent hit, but ‘Sea Lion Woman’, her take on the song made popular by Nina Simone. It’s the one moment when Feist and her band really cut loose, and it easily beats her recorded version.
Things are picking up inside as well. Sid O’Neil from The Vasco Era starts the set on his own, with a radically reworked version of Dylan’s ‘Girl From The North Country’, before the rhythm section joins him. The three of them proceed to turn in an astonishing, high-energy set that’s based in the blues and sounds glorious. Though O’Neil favours a resonator and uses a bottleneck, he never lets that hamper his movement. Unless, that is, you judge him alongside his bass-playing brother Ted, who hurls himself around the stage as if he’s intent on knocking the other two over. The blues might not be desperately fashionable, but bands this sweaty, emotional, dynamic and energetic are all too rare.
After the blazing heat of The Vasco Era, the calm, collected cool of Gotye isn’t unattractive. Wildly successful in Australia, with an ARIA for best male artist to his name, his laid-back bedroom-made electro is pretty much perfect for a lazy summer evening. And going by the reaction it’s exactly what the crowd is in the mood for.
But staying to watch all of Gotye’s set would mean missing the Devastations, and given how rarely they tour Australia there’s no chance of that. They upped sticks and moved to Europe some 
years ago, and on their trips back home they tend to stay in Melbourne and Sydney. Their cursory efforts at breaking their home country are reflected in the size of their audience, which, initially, is less than 50 strong. 'Yes, U’, the band’s latest album, leavened their dark, intense but evocative music with some disco leanings (really) and, in doing so, mostly shook them free of the comparisons with Nick Cave. But tonight, with just the three core band members contributing, and no keyboards, it’s all about volume and intensity rather than anything else. In the end all that noise doesn’t amount to much, because it doesn’t come with any real energy, nor the variety and sensitivity that they display in their recordings.
Finally, at the very end, the two stages have moved back into some sort of alignment – The Presets are nearly two hours late and have barely taken the stage when the Devastations finish. Though you’d never guess it from their audiences or the reactions they get, there are times when the two bands can sound similar. But what The Presets know, far better than the Devastations or any of the other bands here, is how to work a two-thousand-strong crowd. On the face of things, how they do it is a mystery, since there are just two of them and they don’t really do anything but play their music. Generally, that means that Kim Moyes drums while Julian Hamilton sings and presses buttons (to be fair, there are also times when he actively plays keyboards).
Despite the facilities, they don’t bother with anything more than basic lighting, and the only extraneous element in their stage show is a security guard who seems intent on impersonating one of those busking statues. The unavoidable truth is that The Presets’ strength is in their music, including the previewed tracks from their forthcoming second album. Simply put, their songs are brilliantly constructed, and hardly anyone in the crowd can help but dance. Towards the end even the statue is nodding his head.
