PICTURE GALLERY: St Jerome’s Laneway Festival
Comfortably settling into its riverside Footscray home, Saturday’s expanded St Jerome’s Laneway Festival showed once again why it’s become one of the most keenly anticipated events on the summer music calendar.
The aptly named Savages kickstarted the afternoon with a blistering set. The fierce rhythmic attack of thumping bass and drums drove the show along, a perfect foil for the jagged guitar and Jehnny Beth’s banshee punk spirit.
The laconic Melbourne summer sounds of Dick Diver carried listeners to the other end of the spectrum: the jangly vibe of mates playing classic Australian songs at a lazy barbecue perfectly matching the heat.
Unknown Mortal Orchestra’s darkly psychedelic set pleased some, but a warmer response was reserved for Cloud Control’s dreamier, fuzzier take on the form.
Triple J Hottest-100-topping Vance Joy delivered the day’s sing-along standout with the all-pervasive Riptide closing a feel-good set.
Cashmere Cat fired up the Future Classic Stage with a dance-friendly groundswell of beats, paving the way for Mount Kimbie, who settled into their finely crafted pastoral electronica after a scratchy start.
London’s Daughter impressed with fragile, fractured confessional storytelling, crystalline guitar lines melding sweetly with Elena Tonra’s ethereal breathiness.
Chvrches showed why they are rapidly gaining a following for their clever synth-pop, holding attention through to set closer The Mother We Share.
But the biggest buzz from the swelling crowd was reserved for the arrival of LA sisters Haim. The trio’s slick sound and stage show owes as much to The Brady Bunch as it does to indie rock yet there is an energy and songcraft that shines through to explain their cross-over success.
Back on the River Stage, Kurt Vile’s surreptitiously disarming set kept many a toe tapping on the sloping green grass of the Footscray Community Arts Centre.
As twilight fell, Grammy award-winning New Zealand teen Lorde’s hits showed what has made her one of last year’s breakthrough artists.
Prowling the stage, she worked hard to pull the crowd through between the singles everyone was waiting to hear.
Keeping the teenage flag flying, London 19-year-old King Krule’s idiosyncratic and jazz-flecked music proved difficult to define but easy to enjoy, owing as much to trip-hop as it does to gritty punk or darkwave.
Closing their respective stages, electronic wunderkind Four Tet effortlessly built his masterful, broken-beat sound worlds as Scotland’s Frightened Rabbit reserved the day’s most guitar-driven songs for last.
Warpaint picked up where Savages had long ago left off, a gentler groove underpinning songs still brimming with attitude.
The warmly welcomed set proved a fitting end to a festival where the heat failed to dent the good vibes and playful atmosphere among the sell-out crowd of 12,000 people.
