Laneway Festival

Candido Apokalyps takes Eclectikpagan out for a pre-Valentine night on the town.

10 February, Adelaide—A  quarter before five and Candido who works at an undisclosed office in the CBD clocked out and proceeded on foot to the University of South Australia, site of the Laneway Festival, where he was to meet up with Eclectikpagan.

The big draw of the night for Candido was the Brooklyn-based band The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, while it was The Drums, also  from Brooklyn, for Eclectikpagan. To guide them both, a carefully highlighted copy of the night’s line-ups was on hand. Candido arrived right on the dot at five pm to find there was already a rather lengthy line. With Eclectikpagan half an hour away, he decided to wait for her inside while sussing out the place. With his ticket/wristband on, he proceeded through the gate. Here’s an account of what followed.

Astral Projections with Austra

5:30-6:00 Austra, Courtyard stage

Katie Selmanis and her Canadian troupe opened their set to an enthusiastic crowd. Her choir/operatic training was evident as she gesticulated with her hands with every changing note indicating its level on the music scale and exaggerated with her mouth while pronouncing each vowel. Candido found this amusing as he amiably sipped his beer.

The program said their album was “darkly hypnotic” to be “filed next to Bat for Lashes”, but Candido felt it sounded more like a hippie, space age cult version of Enya. Yeah, a definite new age-y feel to it as the singers were all dressed up ready for a trip to Goa. He liked Bat for Lashes, but Austra was on a totally different plane. He could see why it would be called hypnotic, as the mood sort of felt religious, as if he was in the midst of a revival meeting almost.

But ironically, it seemed that most of their followers were of the late teenie bopper set. Senior high school or young college students, mostly girls swaying and singing to the music, loving every second of it, waving their hands and trying to mimic the dance moves of their hippie grandparents.  After trying to get into the music for the first few songs, Candido gave up (it didn’t help that the spot he occupied was a convenient way to cut through). He proceeded to the next venue in anticipation of the following act.

Getting Emo with EMA

6:00-6:35 EMA, George St

Erika M. Andersen’s personality is truly magnetic, her vocal style and guitar riffs reminiscent of Kim Gordon and Sonic Youth. If the crowd at the Courtyard was mostly young-un’s, over here it was those from an earlier generation. Yes, people of Candido’s and Eclecticpagan’s age, veterans of the 90s music scene.

What set apart EMA’s sound from the usual music of the period to which it could be associated though was the introduction of a strings section albeit sonic as well. This element seems to be ubiquitous these days among indie bands. Despite this possibly being regarded as cliché, Candido felt it was a nice touch to a band that could otherwise be classified as being too nostalgic with nothing new to offer.

Eclectikpagan finally arrived near the end of their set. EMA chose to close the evening with a rather emotional number performed by Erika alone on stage. The song California was written probably after having too much to drink because of its authenticity and sheer honesty. It was a bit risky from the standpoint of the artist as she basically ripped her guts out exposing them for everyone to see (metaphorically speaking). It was again, something that distinguished her and a good way to cap a solid performance.

Interlude: toilet and food break

During the latter part of EMA’s set, Candido noticed Kip and Kurt pass him from behind on their way to stage-left. He realized how much taller they were in person from what he had imagined. He then planted himself next to the side entrance awaiting the arrival of Alex and Peggy. They both politely acknowledged his greeting with a smile as they were escorted through the crowd (he was wearing the shirt of their first album under his corduroy jacket).

During the thirty minute break, Candido showed Eclectikpagan around, bought some Nachos and beer, then returned to George St as the band were performing their sound check. Eclectikpagan had gone to the restroom. Candido tried to eat his grub at the front row but had no place to set his drink down. He chose to sit beside a plant box to the left of the stage. This was to be a crucial decision as we shall soon discover.

As Eclectikpagan returned, it began to rain lightly. Stage hands had to cover all the monitors on stage with a tarp as a precaution.  Candido offered the rest of his Nachos to her, but she refused saying they were too messy to eat. Both were about to transfer to the steps behind the plant box for a better view when Candido had a better idea and hopped onto the tall plant box following someone else's lead. Safe on his perch, he was separated from Eclectikpagan though who chose to watch from the steps behind it with her umbrella.

Oh, The Pains When It Rains!

7:00-7:35 The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, George St

The crowd by now had swelled. It was a combination of young and older people. “People in the know,”Candido said to himself. From their opening number to their closing, it was clear that The Pains had definitely “brought it”. The crowd was enthusiastically dancing, bobbing their heads, and appreciating this indie pop group which was both reminiscent of the 90s and transcendent of it, although their live act was less jangly and more muscular than the recorded version.

Halfway into their set, the rain really began to pour. This did not affect the energy of the audience though. A few more people joined Candido on the plant box (a group of college friends with an umbrella sheltered him briefly and a Japanese student who oddly enough resembled Peggy Wang stood next to him). He looked down on the beer can at his feet. It had already spilled out its contents onto the gravel. He chose to chuck the rest of his dinner to one side to prevent someone from slipping on it. It was extremely soggy by now.

The band played the best of their songs from their two albums (Belong, Heart in Your Heartbreak, Young Adult Friction, Teenager In Love, Come Saturday, Everything with You) much to Candido’s delight as he sang and shamelessly played air guitar along. There was truly something magical about this band that he couldn’t help himself gush over ever since he heard Orchard of My Eye. He couldn’t quite put a finger on it, but they seemed to express everything that was good about Brit pop, shoe gazer and alternative music in the nineties (hints of Stone Roses, Ride, My Bloody Valentine and the Smashing Pumpkins) without any of the dross.

In between songs, Kip was quite talkative. He was the only person throughout the entire night who gave shout-outs to other bands such as Toro Y Moi, Girls, and Yuck. It all went by too fast. All in all, it was a solid performance (although Kurt kind of struggled to maintain the right tempo at one point, which was given away by Peggy’s facial expression) with good vibes, great energy, and nice down to earth personality and attitude from the band.

Second interlude

After their set, Candido was hoping to catch the band as they left, except Eclectikpagan was feeling rather miserable, after toiling through the rains (even though she had an umbrella). Having felt that he had neglected her in order to indulge himself with The Pains, Candido decided to take her to “The Caf” for some butter chicken and roti. Yum! In doing so, however, he lost what little chance he had of getting his shirt autographed by some members of the band (oh well, priorities do change when you get hitched).

Swooning over Girls

8:20-9:00 Girls, Register St

This was another band Candido had looked forward to. The venue in Register St was in between the intimate feeling one got at George St but smaller compared to the Courtyard. It was already adequately filled by the time our couple arrived ten minutes prior to their time slot. Girls basically wrapped their audience with an incredible feeling of warmth. Their live act showed a different side to them in that while their most popular song was kind of fun and lively, their on stage performance was more subdued and serious, but in a good way.

The best approach Candido noticed to enjoying them was to close one’s eyes (as the bloke standing beside him had done) and sort of sway to the music and let wave upon wave of emotion simply wash through. There was definitely a “good vibe” feel worth swooning over. A touch of light-heartedness was introduced when they sang “Lust for Life”, but things returned to their solemn nature when they proceeded with “Vomit”.

On the whole, Candido was slightly disappointed. He wanted to hear more of their upbeat stuff, and he realized as well that their new sound sort of felt kind of Peter Frampton-y or even Eric Clapton-ic, which he was not a big fan of (let’s just make that clear). This was not evident to him while listening to the album. He did appreciate their sort of gospelly, soulful sound at times which morphed into a lilting waltz that you could swing to.  Eclectikpagan wasn’t sure what the big deal was all about, but then she only had “Honey Boney” to gauge them by.

Dancing in the Dark with The Drums

9:00-9:25 The Drums, George St

“Whoever decided to book The Drums in this more intimate site was a bloody idiot,” Candido thought. Fifteen minutes prior to their entry, the place was already packed to the rafters. One girl even climbed a wall to get a good vantage point allowing everyone below to see under her skirt.

Eclectikpagan, disappointed that she could not get a closer look, settled for an elevated walkway behind the stairs she had earlier used to view The Pains. It all didn’t matter as the intense backlighting along with the absence of any front lighting obscured any view of Jonathan Pierce. What was the point of seeing them live, if they chose to be totally obscured from view? It was bad enough that he had to stare at a computer LCD monitor all day, did Candido also need to have the glare of the bright white lights strain his eyes now? All of this did not deter the crowd from enjoying the music though, which is where we should leave it.

But actually, we do have more to say…Candido calls The Drums indie music for the masses, and for good reason as their easy-to-listen-to pop hooks and catchy lyrics make them a crowd favourite. The sort of frivolity they elicited was in stark contrast to the stoic shadow Pierce cast on stage, in a way kind of reminiscent of Damon Albarn of Blur. Although this band had all the elements of what would make an indie pop group great, Candido unfortunately could not get into them. There was something simply “not there” for him (even though St Etienne had done a remix of one of their songs which he liked).

Perhaps it was the monotonous jingle-y sort of melodies fit for a bubble gum commercial, or the sort of mindless pre-schooler type lyrics that annoyed him. But what took the cake was the crowd’s response. In a manner that sort of cemented the impression to him that “white folk can’t dance” those surrounding treated him to the sort of freaky dance moves that individuals perform when they are at home alone in their underwear, vacuuming the floor or dusting the shelves with the radio blaring in the background, except that these people were out in public. The view was totally unappealing to Candido to say the least.

Why such a band as The Drums could get away with selling millions of copies of their mediocre debut album while The Pains could remain in relative semi-obscurity was beyond him. Was he the only person around here that felt this way? Anyway, after the mad frolic in the darkness, Pierce shouted, “Thank You!” in that cheezy, stadium announcer sort of way, which encapsulated their performance for Candido. Eclectikpagan came away quite impressed with his vocal performance (Candido conceded that he could belt out the tunes) content in having seen and recorded what she had come for. On to the next!

Toro! Toro!

10:40-11:25 Toro Y Moi, Register St

With the night reaching its high point, the scene was set for Toro Y Moi (pronounced toree-mwa) to bring the house down. And bring it down, they did. This time around, C&E were situated at the front-right of the stage: all-the-better to capture the sights and sounds with.

The band predictably opened with New Beat, a song that Candido loved for its funky groove, but which Eclectikpagan associated with Herbie Hancock. On that point, while he acknowledged there was certainly something 80’s electropop about their repertoire—Candido even used a horrible analogy to reference them in the person of Gary Valenciano, something he credited to Chaz’s part Filipino ancestry (the other half being African American)—that should have characterizsed them as “baduy”(Filipino colloquial for uncool), there was still something unique and refreshing to their sound that made them truly an act to reckon with.

If The Drums had all the elements to be a good indie bad, but weren’t, T y M had all the elements to be a yucky band, but weren’t. By their fourth or fifth song, the crowd was incredibly pumped up. There was a kind of two way love affair going on with flowers being thrown on stage and bottles of cold water being thrown back. This was when the band unleashed a flurry of songs that captured even Eclectikpagan’s enthusiasm. Candido at this point was too lost and too busy grooving to the beats to notice.

The Midnight Hour

11:50-12:50 M83, The Courtyard Stage

After the wonderful afterglow that Toro Y Moi left behind, M83 was just the ticket to cap the evening with. Since C&E didn’t stay for their entire set (aging legs and heels got the better of both of them), we cannot give a full account of the proceedings.

The best way to describe the band onstage is as an assault on the senses. The visual and auditory blast was strong enough to hit you even from the back which is where C&E chose to position themselves (wanting an easy exit). It was a much more muscular performance than their recordings, much to the disliking of both C&E. If The Pains’ more powerful stage act was a good way to present the band, the same could not be said of M83. The gulf between their more mellow and melodic recordings and this fast-paced method was too big to bridge.

Eclectikpagan found this different version of them as tilting them more to fit the mould of Evanescence, in a head-banging sort of way. Candido found this observation quite remarkable for its clarity. Having sized them up as such, Eclectikpagan withdrew to the benches behind them, while Candido persisted for a while longer before giving up the ghost.

Conclusion

Having seen all that they had come to see and more, the couple happily retreated to their nice quiet home in the burbs. All in all, it was a wonderful way to spend the evening. The cool crisp air in the summertime was rather pleasant despite the early evening showers. The total cost for both of them was around $250 including food and beverages. Seeing white people dance like headless chickens to The Drums was not so good, but finally catching The Pains perform live after three years of waiting and praying was indeed priceless.