Laneway Review – 3 stars

Laneway 2014 featured great music, and a slightly disappointing audience. I had hoped for urbane fashion and creativity from punters to match the diversity of excellent music, but instead of K rd opshop, it was more sub casual backyard BBQ with about as much cultural diversity as a South Island pub quiz.

5 more things than I expected:
-Sunburnt fans
-Excellent food
-Fence jumpers
-Constantly tripping over invisible privilege
-Toilet queues

5 less things than I expected:
-Hipster beards
-Tattooed sleeves
-wax tipped moustaches
-seating
-Toilets

Music wise, I turned up late from the Cunliffe State of the Nation address so caught the afternoon sets with two word reviews.
Kurt Vile – Beautifully melodic.
Parquet Courts – Chunky grind.
Ghost Wave – Pulsing energy.
DJ Jacinda Ardern – It was a blistering set that scorched on the day and turned out to be the big beat highlight of Laneway. Jacinda Ardern’s power set: 1. back to black-Beyonce and Andre 3000 2. Careless whisper-Gossip 3. Bang bang- Terry Reid 4. Black or white- Street Chant 5. Clones- smashing pumpkins 6. lust for life- tom jones 7. my way- Sid vicious 8. She’s a mod- the mint chicks 9. Common people- William shatner 10. Drop it like it’s a whole lot- snoop/zeppelin 11. Buddy Holly- Little Pictures 12. it’s love- the pyjama party 13. Yummy yummy yummy- toy love.*
Frightened Rabbits – Eclectic joy.
Savages – Driving beats
Haim – Alt Goddesses (best performance of the entire day)

It was a charming event and it is beautiful that creativity is being brought into the central city but the lack of expressive cool didn’t seem to match the confidence of the music.

It was like Parachute Festival except safer and straighter.

*Disclaimer: The Labour Party gave me a Nokia 100 on a fixed term 12month contract with Vodaphone for this review