29th January 2011: Hipsters, hippies and indie kids from all corners of Singapore and beyond congregated at Fort Canning Park, braving rain and heat- well mostly rain and intense claustrophobia- for Asia’s first Laneway Festival.

It was pure aural pleasure, and I don’t just mean the bands because the organisers spared no expense with the sound system on the festival grounds. Anyone would agree it was a satisfactory compromise to the sub-grade simultaneous video recording of the performance. Aside from the orgasm inducing visuals, here’s what we have to say for some of the noteworthy acts:

!!! (Chk Chk Chk) was obviously the most energetic band at Laneway. Aside from their punk-dance-electronica styled music with the classic style of The Stones, Nic with his crazy dance moves truly brought the crowd alive. The audience loved it when they played their hit single “Heart of hearts”, and I’m happy to report that despite having a new drummer (R.I.P Jerry), the band was really tight. After everyone left and the concert was over, Nic was seen on the street in his underwear and a muddy t-shirt doing that horny dance of his on the way to their hotel, with two hot European chicks. Now that’s what we call a true rockstar.

Yeasayer is a band full of psychedelic bliss packed with some powerful drumming and smooth vocals. A lot of credit goes to the versatile Anand Wilder; he even does the processed electro. Songwriter and main vocalist Chris Keating is outstanding in their studio work, seemed rusty that evening. However, he was clearly the best at the festival at hitting those high notes. The combination of two drummers is fantastic, they create what I like to call a “power-rock-beat”. With diverse progressions and countless layers, blending each sound note to note, they created a hippie paradise for the crowd. With the rain only elevating this feeling, their performance peaked when they played their hit “2080”.

Let’s be honest. Many bought tickets for the simple reason to see The Temper Trap and Foals live. Foals lived up to their reputation, keeping it tight all the way while reflecting the English take on punk-rock. Standing out from the rest of the bands, they maximised the use of pure analog music with minimal electronically processed sounds. However, they couldn’t hold up the energy levels in the crowd throughout their gig. Maybe the vocalist should have dropped his guitar to work up the crowd like Nick. Or maybe everyone was simply exhausted from the rainy weather.

The Temper Trap opened their gig with a piece that oscillated between drums, electro-psychadelica, heavenly guitars and long resonating vocals. This opening would have been perfect, except that someone in the choral was seriously screwing up. Nonetheless, singing along to every song the audience loved them just as much. They closed the festival with “Sweet Disposition”.

Enough with the verbal diarrhoea. On celluloid we’ve preserved Warpaint, Beach House, Ladyhawke, !!! and Deerhunter. Let’s just say that this visual evidence tells of how our photographer viewed each and every band’s performance.