The rapidly expanding Laneway Festival made its first foray into Lonsdale Street on the weekend, blocking off one of Melbourne's busiest streets for two whole days (one day of music and one day of set up) to showcase some of the world's best indie, hip hop and dance artists.
The festival, which traditionally has been held in Caledonian lane, encompassing a number of offshoot side streets and The Lounge on Swanston Street saw great bands like Feist, Broken Social Scene, The Devestations and Gotye perform with Melbourne distinctive architecture in the background.Feist was far and away the best performer of the day and her iPod-made-hit '1,2,3,4' let the crowd go wild.
Gotye had the crowd eating out of the palm of his hand, impressive for just one man on stage, but it was the bands that the crowd didn't seem to familiar with that did a great job of winning them over.
On the main stage, The Devastations and Okkervil River both performed great shows to an intrigued crowd and Little Red tore it up down the ultra-packed Caledonian Lane.
But it was this comment, "ultra packed" that best sums up the festival. Despite a spectacular line up, seeing bands like The Brunettes proved almost impossible as the audience crowded in a laneway eight wide and hundreds deep.
The main arena had no place for rest, there was nowhere to go and have some down time and pass outs weren't allowed until later in the afternoon.
So while the music was great, and as a proud Melbournite it is great to see a part of my city's laneway culture travel around the country, logistically, I would've preferred to hang out in one of Melbourne's Laneway bars that night, and enjoy a festival in a more traditional venue throughout the day.
