Laneway Festival: A to Z Survival Guide

A – A is for the App. Get it right now. That’s an order. A is also Andy Bull. He talks like a jockey, sings like an ‘80s teen heart-throb in a John Hughes rite-de-passage film and is obsessed with David Bowie (like any sane person). Help him drown in a Sea of Approval and make sure you catch his (this is a special request Andrew) his mournful, woozy jam So That I Can Feel Better so that I can feel better about sending you to see him if it clashes. I’m listening to it now and welling up, it’s too beautiful, this is no way to start and A to Z Survival Guide. It’s OK, just like you I’m a survivor, I’m gonna make it.

Find:Artifice by SOHN, if you know what’s good for you sohn.

Avoid: Ass-hats.

B is for Bank. Go there before you attend the festival. I repeat GET LOTS OF CASH OUT FIRST. Think of ATM standing for Always Take Money. B is for Banks too. The LA starlet will make thousands of girls cry and shimmy and shake and plenty of guys will swoon at Beggin’ For A Thread

Find: Breath. Traversing a festival is like tip-toeing through a minefield while rhinoceros stomp towards you, nostrils flaring, spit flying, spears sailing overhead. Do the 9 second trick. Take a deep breath for 3 seconds, hold it for 3 and exhale for 3. Now you’re feeling 10 again.

Avoid: Bath salts. Seriously.

C is for Caramel. That’s the sound New Zealand’s Andy Warhol aka Connan Mockasin will bring to your ears and that’s the aural aesthetic he meticulously went for with his last record….I forget what it’s called. If you don’t know his work, well looky here it’s the long awaited Australian release of Forever Dolphin Love andCaramel Special Edition.

Find: Caramello Koalas.

Avoid: bringing chains, large chains, they won’t let you in. This isn’t Vans Warped, Tom DeLonge! #topical

D is for Dune Rats. Loosest units this side of The Black Lips. The last song on their self-titled debut album When You’re Around is mature, tapping into the same feelings as Seasons (which we’ll get to later). If your Laneway experience is feeling all a bit too nice then the Dunies’ will dirty you up.

Find: Dudes not duds.

Avoid: Dickheads. Meredith Music Festival really hit upon something there.

E is for Eager. As in you wanna get there EARLY. None of this being “fashionably late”, that doesn’t work at music festivals, friendo. The Triple J Unearthed stage boasts JOY (Brisbane), I Know Leopard (Sydney), Sparkspitter (Adelaide), Milwaukee Banks (Melbourne) and Dianas (Perth).

Find: Eagulls. Killer live band.

Avoid: Entering into a tryst with your BFF’s boyfriend/girlfriend. Unless you get consent.

F is for Four Tet. Yes smarty pants I know he played Laneway Festival last year BUT he gave Faribou, sorry Caribou (his musical soulmate) the good word on how great a time he had and lo and beer-hold, Dan Snaith is here with us in 2015, armed to the teeth with his Our Love record. To see what floats Caribou’s boat, this recent BBC6 Music mix runs the jewels/gamut from Floating Points to a mystery Four Tet collab. #fullcircle

Find: Flares (the pant kind, POND will give you some of their rider if you give ‘em a pair).

Avoid: Flares (the explosive kind).

G is for Grabbing a bite to eat. It’ll help metabolise your alcohol/everything and give you the fuel you need to power on to the after parties and the after after-party and so on.

Find: Good grub, Laneway “curate” the nosh selections.

Avoid: Gross goop. Y’know, dim sims and heavily battered crabsticks and dirty souvlakis. They’re for the way home at 2am.

Kleenex, STAT. Future Islands’s Samuel T Herring (far left) about to sneeze.

H is for Herring. Not a red one, this guy is the realest of real deals. Future Islands’ Samuel T Herring is the man everyone will want to dance like…he’ll loosen us all up. Odds on to be the Set of the Day©.

Find: Samuel T Herring’s real age. My research suggests he’s only 31!

Avoid: Harpies, Queen of the.

I is for Immunity. Not the diplomatic kind, no, Jon Hopkins’ slamming, super-intelligent fourth album Immunity. The understated Brit is a festival pinch-hitter. This from my Meredith 23 review: “Hopkins gave us never-ending, cliff-drops as red and green lights did more swooping than a leafy street in September. The smoke machine behind him was either working a double shift or didn’t exist at all. My theory is it was simply the steam coming out of his ears and pits and nostrils.”

Find: Igloo (if it gets too hot)

Avoid: Image-crafting.

J is for Jungle (and Jon Hopkins, you are NOT ALLOWED to miss him #irepeat) The snakehipped bassline intro of Time will ignite the DF. Jungle are a wilfully mysterious London funk band who narrowly missed out on winning the Mercury Prize but still play like winners, like they’ve just scooped the lottery, like they’re about to make you feel like a million dollars. NB: “…a million pounds” doesn’t have the same ring.

Find: Juice and water and coconuts-with-straws-in-them and DRINKS THAT AREN’T ALWAYS ALCOHOL, DUM DUM.

Avoid: Jumping off tall buildings in a single bound. See B for Bath Salts.

K is for Knowing when it’s time stop and enjoy a whole set by an artist. Your Laneway Festival is not about seeing half a song of 24 bands while checking Insta/Twitter/Facebook/Snapchat/Grindr/Scruff. Put your phone away, find your pocket and groove. Mindfulness, it’s the thing of 2015.

Find: Your mates at specific rendezvous spots 10 minutes before the act, K?

Avoid: Know-it-alls. “You learn more with your mouth shut.” – Oscar Milde.

L is for Little Dragon. Swedish fire-breathers. A genre unto themselves. They’ll be gaspingly good. L is also for Layer 3, Flying Lotus’ new show that’ll crush your skull until your brain dribbles out your ears. Should be fun.

Find: Laneway Licks. Four different gelato flavours from Messina including Connan Mocha-sin: Peanut butter gelato with mocha custard and chocolate biscuits. Only available at Sydney and Melbourne.

Avoid: Lorne Malvo. Scary Motherf–ker.

M is for Mac DeMarco. Who brings their MOM on tour? Mac, that’s who, and as if she’ll be anything less than an UTTER LEGEND. Agnes DeMarco is your MC, treat her nice. Not only are DeMarco and his band funnier than most stand-up comics treading the boards, Salad Days is custom built for sunshine and beer and hugging your besties and high fiving strangers and understanding your place in this topsy turvy world when he sings “So don’t go telling me how this boy should be leading his own life, Sometimes rough, but generally speaking I’m fine.”

Find: Mistletone stage which is in every city. See Perfect Pussy, Eagulls and other good sorts like those good sorts behind Mistletone, Sophie and Ash.

Avoid: Munted people. I had a brainwave the other day about naming a recovery party ‘That Time of The Munt.’ Nobody steal that please.

Whoa. Is that a Schlomo remix? Wait did DeMarco just punk us and another 261,477 people? The nerve of the knave. CLAP EMOJI. Stop stressin’ start decompressin’

N is for Nurofen/Panadol/Panadeine. Getting a midafternoon migraine is a lame way to remember Laneway. I recall being baked and headachy midafternoon watching Spiderbait at Big Day Out in ‘96, jussssst holding it together and THEN a Doc Marten wearing crowd-surfer landed on my head (I didn’t see a 10 metre diving board, there must have been one though) and I was cactus for the next two hours, sitting by myself trying to keep positive — stinging — sans paracetamol.

Find: Norwegian dreamcatchers Highasakite.

Avoid: Naked feet. No bare foot heroes please, we know you’re in touch with your chi and like writing on papyrus and had seriously-the-best-time-ever-at-a-bush-doof last week but keep your sensible shoes on.

O is for Our Courtney. There’s another Barnett on the bill who we’ll get to, meanwhile Courtney Barnett’s debut album is imminent. IN FACT IT GOT ANNOUNCED THIS MORNING AND I’VE BEEN LISTENING TO A STREAM OF IT AND IT’S TOTALLY WORTH THE CAPS LOCK because it’s called Sometimes I Sit and Think And Sometimes I Just Sit and imma let you finish but this will make her huge.

Find: Openings in your schedule.

Avoid: Using the word “orifice”. It’s the new “panties.”

P is for Pockets. You need plenty of these to keep things like wallet, ticket, sunscreen, chewing gum, medicines etc. If you’re taking a bag make it as light as possible first.

Find: Pitchfork approved acts like Angel Olsen.

Avoid: Painting the toilet bowl ie. vomming.

Q is for Qewpie Mayonnaise (sicK) on Japanese food. Yes that is how you spell it.

Find: Quick wits. The best conversations at festivals are the 2 minute chats you have with randoms.

Avoid: Quantity over Quality.

R is for Rogers, Danny Rogers (Sean Connery Bond tones). He and Jerome Borazio are the magnificent men who travel the world finding acts just about to break (see Royal Bloods), book them and six months later you are frothing in the front row for them at Laneway. Take a bow gentlemen. Also the boss-ladies at Bossy. Boss. And if you don’t know, now you know.

Find:Raury. He’s blowing up, on the blogs he keeps showin’ up. Rustie too. Ratking also. R is really punching above its weight this year.

Avoid: Words that rhyme with Raury: Story, Allegory. And EHRMEGERD YOU GUYS, there’s a REAL Corey hotline?

S is for Seasons (Waiting On You). Is there a more perfect lyric about the way friendships morph and improve and deteriorate than this one? “People change, you know but some people never do, You know when people change, They gain a peace but they lose one too.” Flattens me every time like a Drederik Tatum punch. Herring also raps. As Hemlock Ernst. So there’s that.

Find: Singapore airfares (cheap ones) for 50 weeks time. And Switch Lanes when Tkay Maidza starts musing “I don’t know why they think we’re alike..”

Avoid: Suckers. Drainers. As Eleanor Roosevelt said: “Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.”

TITLE: Switch Lanes – Tkay Maidza

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CAPTION: Switch Lanes – Tkay Maidza

T is for Tkay. You thought I was done talking about Tkay? Nyet. She is an idea, an event and (finally) a person. 2015 is the year Tkay gets Maid(za). Fun fact: Tkay was initially inspired to get into rapping by that tweeting-trollop-who-should-let-her-music-do-the-talking Azealia Banks.

Find:Twigs, Tahliah Twigs. She’s the Genie that’ll Throttle™. When she thrusts her hips at a 70 degree angle she may actually tear a hole in the Time Space Continuum that sets off cataclysmic world events. Fka Twigs does a lying-on-her-back-and-picking-up-the-microphone-like-a-scorpion-in-reverse move. R-Patz must see some crazy sh-t in the bedroom.

Avoid: Trucker hats. Whatever cap Mac DeMarco is wearing is in fashion.

FKA Yeah. FKA Twigs performs during Pitchfork Music Festival at Union Park last July.

U is for Unreal. This line-up is so tight it’s hard to believe it’s real.

Find: Underarm deodorant.

Avoid: UV Rays. Slip Slop Clap. My weapon of choice is a poker player visor.

V is for Vincent. St Vincent. Annie Clark. David Byrne’s obsession and probably yours too. Don’t wanna build it up or nuttin. Actually yes I do. Because St. Vincent is in career-best form and she pulls all kinds of tricks outta the bag you’ve never seen before. Fun fact: she has wall eyes like Mona Lisa. Also, Vic Mensa, who’s anything but down on his luck (swish) after his hook-up with Kaytranada on new single Drive Me Crazy. Follow Mensa’s advice if you have anyone harshing on your vibe: “F—k that, get down.”

Find: Visa PayWave. That’s if you ignored my Always Take Money advice.

Avoid: Vacuous people.

W is for The Worry. Don’t worry, you’ll be fine, you’re a warrior not a worrier. The Worry is Seekae’s third album and residentadvisor.net got it right when they dropped 4.5 stars on it. Wait for Oxen Calm, Another and The Stars Below. My keyboard just iced up, that’s how cool Seekae will be live.

Find: Good King Wenceslas. It’s just a great name and I wanted to include it somewhere.

Avoid: Wearing clothes that chafe or itch. Now is not the time to suffer for fashion’s sake, there are plenty of other things in your wardrobe you won’t regret wearing by 12.32pm.

X is for Xanthe. Cool name. We called our daughter Juno but Xanthe was in the running.

Find: X-Ray specs.

Avoid: X-Ray specs wearing pervs.

Y is Your Safety. It’s paramount. Have fun sure, just don’t go so hard you misplace an eyeball/yourself. You don’t want people to be singing “But no one has seen or heard from him since last Wednesday.”

Find: Yakitori. Oishi desu!

Avoid: Yelling in people’s ears. Push their tragus in gently and then do your yapping.

Z is for Zebras. Gotta love zebras.

Find: Zapping lasers. Jon Hopkins and Fly Lo will have eye-gasmic light shows. Strap in.

Avoid: Zzzzzs. Sleep is for the week.

Well I enjoyed the sh-t outta that, I trust you did too, have a most excellent festival and look after yourselves and one another.

Mikey

twitter.com/joeylightbulb

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Saturday 31 January – BRISBANE – BRISBANE SHOWGROUNDS, BOWEN HILLS (16+)

Sunday 1 February – SYDNEY – SYDNEY COLLEGE OF THE ARTS (SCA), ROZELLE

Friday 6 February – ADELAIDE – HART’S MILL, PORT ADELAIDE (16+)

Saturday 7 February – MELBOURNE – FOOTSCRAY COMMUNITY ARTS CENTRE (FCAC) AND THE RIVER’S EDGE

Sunday 8 February – FREMANTLE – ESPLANADE RESERVE AND WEST END

lanewayfestival.com.au

www.news.com.au/entertainment/music