What Happened At Laneway Festival 2018: Singapore’s Largest Indie Music Event
PUBLISHED January 31st, 2018 04:10 pm | UPDATED May 18th, 2020 06:35 pm
The organisers of Singapore’s premiere indie music tastemaker did well this year, despite some technical glitches and noticeably smaller crowds than yesteryears. We recap the good and bad of St. Jerome’s Laneway Festival Singapore, which returned for its eighth edition at The Meadow, Gardens by The Bay, last Saturday – and thank our lucky stars it didn’t rain.
More regional acts, less international star power
Anyone can see that the lineup for Laneway Festival is clearly downsized, numbering at 23 compared to 35 last year and over 30 in 2016. What that means is longer performing times for each act, and in a way, not enough diversity. On the international front, the headliners included British rock group Wolf Alice, who dazzled with hard-hitting tracks from their latest album Visions Of A Life (2017), even though a blown amplifier. Laneway alumnus MacDeMarco and his band of half-naked men (to be fair, the heat was insane) were snazzy and groovy, knocking out popular favourites like ‘Chamber of Reflection’ and ‘Salad Days’ amid newer songs. Industry veterans Slowdive were well-received with their breed of shoegaze rock for the new generation, considering the band is older than a large number of the festival attendees. Even then, it looks like there just wasn’t enough star power to draw in the numbers.
Yet, we have to credit the organisers for allocating nearly a third of the lineup to regional and local acts, even if some of them, like alextbh, HEALS, as well as Obedient Wives Club were relegated to the earlier part of the festival when the crowds were at their smallest.
Festival’s most popular act Anderson .Paak plagued by technical hiccups
Throughout the festival’s long run in Singapore, this year’s edition of Laneway is perhaps one of its most smoothest-running to date. The number of porta-potties was sufficient, the walkways were well lit, there was no overcrowding at side stages, and set timings were generally on schedule. We even saw less leftover bottles and trash on the floor after the event.
Still, whatever can go wrong might probably go wrong, and this time it’s the technical glitch during Anderson .Paak’s set barely 10 seconds in. After a round of light jeering and 10 minutes later, the Grammy-nominated American rap artist easily won back the crowd as he and his band The Free Nationals dived into tracks from his 2016 album Malibu, including ‘Come Down’, ‘Heart Don’t Stand A Chance’, and ‘Am I Wrong’. In typical Paak fashion, the man is equally enticing whether he’s gyrating around the stage, rocking out with exhilarating drum solos, or slowing things down for his soulful R&B tracks.
A larger ‘Cloud Stage’
Visitors to Laneway Festival’s 2015 run will remember the horrors of squeezing through a clogged walkway to see electronic artist Chet Faker (now known as Nick Murphy) at the old Cloud Stage, as well as the badly mixed sound. This year, the stage has been moved to a brand new location and boasts a significantly larger stage than previous runs, with an equally supersized sound system to handle the demanding sonic loads of English hip-hop musician Loyle Carner, electronic-pop duo Sylvan Esso, and local reggae queen MAS1A (think the international underground hit ‘Warriors Tongue’). Thankfully, they delivered and the audiences quickly sopped up the improved acoustics in a roaring good time.
UberEats enters the fray
It used to be that getting food at Laneway Festival was a chore. Aside from the maddening long queues, the less enthused variety of food and drink meant that the festival experience wasn’t quite complete. Thankfully, 2018 saw a partnership with UberEats bringing in 10 popular restaurants and brands like Sidecar Handcrafted (known for its gourmet sausages), 1925 Brewing Co, Udders Ice Cream (a lifesaver in the maddening heat), and Señor Taco.
What’s more, UberEats uses could use the app to order food directly to the festival and have it sent to dedicated collection points located across the festival grounds, all with a few clicks. That meant endless possibilities to fuel up with as we grooved to the music, and we have to say, it’s about time.
St. Jerome’s Laneway Festival Singapore 2018 happened on Saturday, 27 January 2018, at The Meadow, Gardens by the Bay.
