We interrupt this programme Again!! ... Laneway Festival 2011

Ok ... don't you love Footscray!! The West has soooo much to offer, great food, great mix of people, great proximities of all sorts, and yes ... a great music venue!! If the surrounding johnny-come-lately residential apartments don't kick up too much of a stink, I hope the Laneway Festival continues to use the Footscray Community Arts Centre as its Melbourne venue of choice. It was the most organised festival I have ever been to, largely in part (I'm guessing) due to the fact that the number of punters is sustainable.

Yes there was the usual bag check, id check, no umbrella (annoying!!) check and water bottle check. But they let you bring in an empty bottle and there is a bank of taps and water coolers for you to use!! Staff and volunteers were everywhere to be seen, and to assist. There were heaps of food stores and at least 2 bar areas where the queues were efficiently managed ... same goes for the toilets! And we didn't feel like we were having to rush to get to stages in order to catch our favourite acts. A far cry from the St Jerome days!!

And I had one of the better cone of chips with mayo sauce from the beatbox burger stand.


We started the day off with a hot steaming bowl of Pho (and if you have to click on this link to see what Pho is ... shame on you!!!) from our favourite Huong Vong. We got to the arts centre at about 2-ish and after getting our bearings we found Bear in Heaven in full swing.

Its hard to describe exactly what this band sounds like. They're basically an electronic rock outfit with a really heavy sound. Their debut Beast Rest Forth Mouth was one of the better finds for 2010, and up there for best album cover of the year I might add.

The second band we saw was Beach House. Everyone and their dog has Victoria's hairstyle. I think its a bit of a 60s folkie throwback but hey if you can pull it off, why not? I have to say that I'm not really up on this band's music, I did enjoy the gig, but I suspect that MN & K got more out of it than I did. Still they have enthusiastic fans, apart from the bunch of young things who turned up towards the end and were completely bored and carrying on like a group of bored toddlers. I ask ... why bother even coming? I don't get it.

We stopped for a bit of a sit down and a drink (and half watched Holy Fuck's set, you know the band with the cute kitty video - not bad at all!!) before heading off to see the progrock madness of LA's Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti who decided to stopover at Savers before the gig and pick out the very worst offenders that store has to offer. Well, I did appreciate the gold lame animal print madness. Not really my cup of tea, but I enjoyed the silliness of this gig and their fans were really getting into it. Lots of hands-in-the-air-hot-boy madness. Undecided as to whether content matches the hype ... but I guess alot of people get off on this. They were singing along and doing some crazy arsed 80s moves.

 Holy Fuck

Here's the cute kitty video:

Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti

Then it was time for Deerhunter, which is kinda who I mainly wanted to see. They did not dissapoint! Why is this band so great live. Its hard to put my finger on it. I guess if you don't really like their music, then you certainly would not have appreciated the 15min drone workout that they ended their set with ... but I was almost in tears when it finished and the drummer fell exhausted from his kit. It was amaaazzzing!!

We ended the night watching Cut Copy from the distance and left halfway to beat the crowds. But it was a great way to end the night ... with that slightly daggy white boy dance beat ringing in our ears.