A few weeks before Laneway festival’s national tour began, a minor controversy tore the local music community along some very fuzzy lines: Kirin J Callinan was quietly and unceremoniously removed from the lineup, after another act on the bill, rapper Miss Blanks, raised concerns with promoters.
On the Aria red carpet late last year, a kilted Callinan needed little encouragement to briefly oblige a photographer’s request that he flash them. It was an especially poor decision amid the churning perma-scandal of #MeToo and the growing consensus that it’s good not to have to see people’s genitals if you haven’t asked to.
Fans and commentators leapt to his defence after his axing from Laneway, some arguing essentially that pop musicians should be exempt from indecent exposure laws even outside of a performance context because all the world’s a stage, really, and the music industry cannot suffer the persecution of such brave provocateurs. The festival organisers were in a tight spot either way, particularly given their support of Camp Cope’s It Takes One anti-harassment initiative in 2017.
Callinan’s only public statement on the matter – at least until he appears on ABC TV’s Tonightly on Thursday night – has been to support and defend Miss Blanks, a trans woman of colour, against the nastier corners of the online backlash, while expressing disappointment that he wouldn’t be playing Laneway.
He could be spotted among the crowd (and sneaking onstage during Mac Demarco) at Sydney’s iteration of the festival on Sunday, in a relatively subdued mustard-hued ensemble that covered him neck to ankle – though the getup may have been too hot for him to catch Miss Blanks’ sweaty, sultry 1pm set, a precision barrage of brash, sex-positive fire with confidence and a C-word count almost as high as the UV index.
In its 13th year as a multicity event, Laneway has become both the discerning fan’s sonic smorgasbord and the blockbuster one-dayer of the summer festival season. With lineups as wide ranging as the kitchen-sink bills of its closest ancestor, the Big Day Out (though much more tightly edited), it’s big enough to encompass the basic as well as the bougie.
This year’s offering ranged from enigmatic pop prodigy Billie Eilish (born in LA, 2001) to cult shoegaze act Slowdive (formed in Reading, 1989); from the sludgy, galactic pulse of Austin electronic four-piece SURVIVE to the inexplicable soft-rock cult of Laneway regular Mac Demarco. Even the food options went all the way from pizza to seriously high-end meal deals from Restaurant Hubert and 10 William St with matched cocktails.
But with tickets still available at the box office when gates opened, it was the first time since 2012 that the Sydney leg hasn’t sold out. Whether it was the $175+ price point or the lack of truly massive names (the previous couple of years have featured the likes of Flume and Tame Impala), it may have disappointed the organisers – though for the first time in years, there was actually some room to move.
Rewards for early birds included a blistering set from British-Icelandic punk four-piece Dream Wife. There’s a little glam and a little 90s alt-pop in their art-school rock’n’roll, but it has a razor-sharp edge: Rakel Mjoll takes the call and response from the Spice Girls’ Wannabe and gleefully splices it into a screeching refrain of “I’m gonna fuck you up / I’m gonna cut you up”.
The girl power sparked just as strongly one stage over with Eilish. For some reason she’s been plagued by technical issues on several stops of this tour already, and Sydney was no different – but she breezed through, mugging blithely for the supportive crowd, her velvety voice note-perfect from shadowy single Bellyache to a forlorn ukulele cover of Hotline Bling.
Laneway’s sound and site logistics teams have struggled with the peculiar topography of Sydney College Of The Arts for as long as the venue has hosted the festival. They’ve finally got the layout really right, with barely any bottlenecks or awkward food/portaloo jostling. The sound, sadly, is still an issue. If you’re more than halfway back at the awkward little Future Classic stage, inside the college’s sandstone keep, all you’re getting is bass and drunken chatter: Sylvan Esso’s wry, wistful dance-pop suffers perhaps the worst here, which is a shame, as singer Amelia Meath’s bubbly energy is visible from the muffle zone.
Things were clearer at Spinning Top – (Sandy) Alex G’s deceptively ramshackle slacker charm and Wolf Alice’s heavy, ethereal rock both carried well. On the main Park and Garden stages, the crowds swelled for The Internet and Anderson Paak – both world-class hip hop/R&B acts with impeccable live credentials, the latter in particular a perpetual motion machine with unbelievable charisma – but the sound was still patchy.
While in some years the lineups have occasionally blurred into a slacker-chill fuzz of samey sounds, 2018’s Laneway revels in variety. Sated but worn out by the seething crowd at Paak, I found Aldous Harding was a perfect palate cleanser – though more molecular gastronomy than classic mint sorbet. With what seemed to be most of the festival watching Paak’s final number, I could pick my way to the front of the stage for Harding, stepping carefully between stock-still, silent audience members like a jewellery thief avoiding laser detectors. Her wonderfully weird stage presence, with the exaggerated, almost grotesque expressions, deep-set eyes and pencil brows of a silent film star, makes her otherworldly voice all the more absorbing.
But while Slowdive’s colossal, glittering, dreamy return was a perfect way to close out the night – with responses to an apparently strobe-induced medical incident showcasing the best elements of the crowd, and a few ill-advised crowdsurfers the worst – the best part of the day was something on a smaller scale. The leafy, intimate Block Party mini-stage, curated by indie label and promoter I Oh You, was a joyful little oasis I found myself sneaking back to repeatedly. Just a minute’s duck-and-weave from the two main stages but with the sound surprisingly well isolated were some of the country’s most promising emerging artists – rapper Jesswar, Triple j Mix Up selector Andy Garvey, wildly talented electropop producer Basenji, New York hip hop ratbag Wiki.
Even when it was full of punters who’d gone a little too hard too early, it captured an energy that felt just like the early years of Laneway, where you could see up-and-comers having the time of their lives in a tiny tent, almost close enough to touch.
• Laneway festival continues in Brisbane and Fremantle this weekend
