Laneway Festival: Better than Sex

What’s the buzz? Where’s the feed? The 2015 Laneway Festival line-up is officially better than the 14 (really quite awesome) things below:

1. Sliced Bread

Caribou’s new album Our Love can match it with Burgen’s Soya and Linseed. Any day of the week and twice on Sundays. It’s salubrious. Dan Snaith recently told FACT MAG “When I was making Can’t Do Without You, I was imagining playing that at a festival in the summer, sun going down, in front of a big crowd. That was very informed by experiences we’ve had since Swim. It felt like a communal thing.”

2.KeepCups ™

KeepCups ™ is the first barista standard reusable coffee cup. Invented in Australia. We can be proud of that, sure, however there’s an elephant in the room. And it has its mucky trunk all up in your latte. They’re great for the environment but KeepCups™ make coffee taste a like rhymes-with-pass.

St Vincent won’t leave a muggy, melted plastic aftertaste in your mouth and she’s exclusive to Laneway too, Annie Clark refuses to see other suitors while she’s out here. Bear witness.

3.Text Messages

Apparently the young ‘uns aged 10-16 are using text messages, WhatsApp and SnapChat more than Facebook while ol’ creep Zuckerberg is busy offending the queer community by insisting Drag Queens use their real names. Nice back-pedal there, Zucker. Text messages are tops but when you’re at a music festival they can be quite distracting, especially if you’re trying to enjoy Jon Hopkins as he plays a slamming set of transmogrifying live techno. The Mercury Prize nominated geezer works his machines so hard it causes steam to emit from his ears and armpit and nose and, well, you don’t wanna be jabbing away at a greasy screen asking ‘Where r u rite now? :-/’, you wanna be cutting a rug, throwing shapes, doing the open-the-microwave dance and grinning at your coterie every time he piledrives another cheek-creasing drop. This should be you.

4. Paper Towelling

Look I’ve been proselytising about Sorbent and Tuff Mate for years. It mops up those little spills, stops your goats cheese, tomato, ham and quince paste toasties going soggy and can even be used in the boudoir post horizontal hang-timez (a last resort, yes, make sure you use the non-coarse side).

That’s all well and good but didn’t your mum tell you to respect your elders? Agnes DeMarco is MCing Laneway Festival and she is the mother of Man Of The Decade® Mac DeMarco, a guy who hocks up catchy songs like lurgies. He literally spits hits.

Have you heard DeMarco’s last album Salad Days? Then you’ll appreciate his lyrics on the existential malaise of touring and giving it your all. “Passing out pieces of me, don’t you know nothing comes free? What mom don’t know has taken its toll on me/ It’s all I’ve seen that can’t be wiped clean/ It’s hard to believe what it’s made of me.” Like you’re not going to well up when he sings the line about his Mom and she’s standing side of stage, proud as punch, wiping the sweat off his axe with a crisp square of paper towel.

5. Ello.

You paid WHAT for an invite to Ello? Writer and Culture Consultant Mel Campbell claims a mate of hers shelled out $ 500. To quote two wise men, I think it was Oscar Wilde and Winston Churchill, “That sh-t cray.” Ello is very 2015 and it’s encouraging us all to have another option away from CrackBook which is positive but when Courtney Barnett dun-dun-dun-dun-dunnnnnneeeeowwww into the start of Avant Gardener you’ll be shouting out “ELLO” with a H like Mike Myers in So I Married An Axe Murder.

6. Smoke Machines

Local DJ Andee Frost once said, “All you need for a party is a strobe light and a smoke machine” (music and a soundsystem help too).

When yer in de cluuuuurrrrrrrb smoke machines are brilliant and you can see the layers of life around you aaaand that’s why at Laneway Festival Flying Lotus (Layer 3) is bringing his own smoke machine and LED screens and LCD Soundsystems and Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds and it’ll be take your breath away. Surprise, you’re dead.

7. Wi-Fi.

Where is Wi-Fi? Is it in the bit of space above DELIBERATLEY LEFT BLANK? Is it just here [ ] ? Why won’t Wi-Fi reveal itself? What the fap is it doing to the clouds anyway?

No, I’m sorry Wi-Fi this simply won’t do. You ain’t the future. We’ve seen the future and it works. Give me Future Islands’ Samuel T Herring owning the stage and everything in a 10 kilometre radius when he sings and thrusts and growwwwls.

8. The Wheel

This one’s a bit difficult to beat, what with the fact most of us in the rat race will be getting to Laneway Festival via a car or train or bike or generally anything without trapezoid shaped tyres etc.

Yet I can’t shake this lingering feeling Dune Rats are going to conquer every leg of the tour with songs about getting stoned and dethroned and asking the Dalai Lama deep questions and making you relax about something that’s bothering and just shrug it off and go “F—k it.”

9. Piano Key Neckties.

I was wrong. Nothing’s better than a Piano Key Necktie. Make it 14 Things (Third Person Ed’s Note, I did already, numbskull).

FYI: Todd should be aware that Mugatu gets farty and bloated with a foamy latte.

Actually 9. A Trip Through The Amazon.

Nah maaate. Too many mozzies and anacondas (quiet Nicki Minaj, it’s not all about you all the time). Skip the trip and let the jungle come to you. Wilfully mysterious London duo Jungle are a better bet, earlier this year they toured for Splendour in the Grass and absolutely SAHHHHHH-LAYED IT WITH A MACHETE (read: 8 piece band). JUNGLIST.

Prepare ye for the slip’n’slide bassline.

10. John Butler.

Don’t watch it. You’re better than that.

Connan Mockasin (pictured, perfectly), Perfect Pussy and Rustie all have more merit than that unwashed Seppo.

11. A convivial game of Monopoly.

Not even close. Convivial? Who are you kidding. Monopoly always ends up in a punch-up or some neggin’ out with passive aggression.

Chief Wiggum said it best: “How do those Parker Brothers sleep at night?”

Laneway gives us Flight Facilities instead so you can kick up your heels, order a Sidecar and fly the friendly skies.

12. Capes

Capes are cool. Kinda like the anti-slanky. Just on that, self-respect, it’s important. If you wear a slanky then you probably have done some weird frotting with someone at your work Christmas Party and it’s October now and it’s been weird for 10 months and you’re thinking it may happen again and you’re OK with that.

Back to capes though and Nicolas Jaar, the bright spark behind Darkside, wore one this year during his live set. It looked impressive and flow-y but you don’t wanna be living in the past.

Andy Bull sets a much finer example, he wears reverend-like shirts and sings acerbic choruses like “Baby, you talk too much, I told you that.” #shade.

13. Pugs

Speaking of animals, where my dogs at? Nothing against pugs, especially not t-shirts that say Pugs Not Drugs or pugs in t-shirts that say Pugs Not Drugs or just a PUG ON A T-SHIRT like above but those little animals have nada on Little Dragon. The new record Nabuma Rubberband extends their legacy as a band who sound like nobody else.

14. Sex(ual Chocolate)

Um, FKA Twigs!? Live!? Better than Sexual Chocolate AND EVEN SEX ITSELF. You get all the thrills without the spills (Tuff Mate, holler) and the pay-off without having to take a day off.

Think about it, you don’t have to scroll through Tinder like you’re choosing a Subway sandwich, you get to see Mrs Robert Pattinson do this whiplash, hiplash headflick at the 1.07 mark:

And you thought Bill Murray was the

Best. Bill. Everrrr.

Full line-up:

Agnes DeMarco*

Andy Bull

Angel Olsen

BANKS

Benjamin Booker

Caribou

Connan Mockasin

Courtney Barnett

Dune Rats

Eagulls

Eves***

FKA Twigs

Flight Facilities

Flying Lotus (Layer 3)

Future Islands*

Highasakite

Jesse Davidson**

Jon Hopkins*

Jungle

Little Dragon

Lykke Li

Mac DeMarco

Mansionair

Perfect Pussy

Peter Bibby

POND

Ratking

Raury

Royal Blood*

Rustie

Seekae

SOHN

St Vincent*

Vic Mensa

*Exclusive to Laneway: no sideshows, Bob.

**Laneway Radelaide only

***Exclusive to East Coast shows only, Sugarhill Gangbangers.

Saturday 24 January – Singapore – The Meadow, Gardens By The Bay

Monday 26 January – Auckland – Silo Park

Saturday 31 January – Brisbane – Brisbane Showgrounds, Bowen Hills (16+)

Sunday 1 February – Sydney – Sydney College Of The Arts (Sca), Rozelle

Friday 6 February – Adelaide – Harts 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

Follow twitter.com/joeylightbulb and be like Courtney Barnett, Chet Faker and Chunkylover78.

Originally published as Laneway Festival: Better than Sex
www.news.com.au/entertainment/music