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Laneway Festival Singapore: More than just music

SINGAPORE - Back in 2011, when its was announced that the Laneway Festival would come to our shores, there was no small amount of skepticism over the Singaporean appetite for an outdoor music festival featuring indie bands and artistes such as Temper Trap and Foals. Fast forward to 2015 and Laneway Festival Singapore has become one of the biggest regional music festivals (it sold out all 13,000 tickets this year).

The Laneway experience: More than just spending a day at Gardens By The Bay listening to your favourite bands. Photo: Laneway Festival Singapore / Chugg Entertainment.

The Laneway experience: More than just spending a day at Gardens By The Bay listening to your favourite bands. Photo: Laneway Festival Singapore / Chugg Entertainment.

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SINGAPORE - Back in 2011, when its was announced that the Laneway Festival would come to our shores, there was no small amount of skepticism over the Singaporean appetite for an outdoor music festival featuring indie bands and artistes such as Temper Trap and Foals. Fast forward to 2015 and Laneway Festival Singapore has become one of the biggest regional music festivals (it sold out all 13,000 tickets this year).

Certainly the organisers took great pains to ensure that the Laneway experience was more than about the music alone. Sponsor tents dotted the outer perimeter of the venue with interesting activities to keep the punters entertained: From playing games (Jumbo Jenga, Headis and Tic Tac Throw) with Monkey Shoulder to enjoying a portable toilet designed by Dr. Martens with 70s punk posters to signing up for music streaming services with Rdio or getting a haircut/shave and tattoo with Sailor Jerry. Being stuck in one place for almost 12 hours also requires a proper catering to food and beverage requirements, and those needs too, were well taken care of with The Brat (hot dogs), Yellow Submarine (meat wraps) and South East Sliders (sandwiches) standing out somewhat from the pack.

Even with the music, there was a palpable sense that by and large, it needed to serve the general tastes of the young music lover. Thus, once evening arrived there was an emphasis on dance music that indicated where the direction of indie music in general has gravitated to since 2011. Acts like Rustie, Jungle, Little Dragon, Banks, Chet Faker, Jon Hopkins and Future Islands all fit the bill superbly. Future Islands stole the show with Samuel T Herring’s memorable stage antics - coming across as an unlikely hybrid of young Marlon Brando, Henry Rollins and a death metal growler.

But for true blue Singapore music lovers, the highlights of the festival arrived at 5.20pm at the Cloud Stage where first, electro-pop duo .gif and subsequently acoustic folk troubadours Hanging Up The Moon flew the flag for local music for the second time running at Laneway. Weish and Din - who make up .gif - were in excellent form and with popular songs like Diatribe and Juvenile, even getting the audience to sing along. For Hanging Up The Moon - the stage moniker for musician Sean Lam and his band, which includes Leslie Low (of The Observatory), Victor Low (Affixen), Alexius Cai and Dean Aziz (of Concave Scream) - the set was problematic, with the sound system seemingly unable to cope with the acoustic guitars, often resulting in unrelenting feedback. Lam was apologetic throughout the set but even those technical gremlins did not prevent the band from delivering warm, spine-tingling open-chord folk-rock with songs such as Brave New World, Pedestrian and Indie Moves, which were illuminated with gorgeous melodies and harmonies. Sadly, the set was somewhat lost on the youngish crowd, sitting down comfortably on the floor (even facing away from the stage) as they booked their positions for the next electro-pop act to come.

However, in the overall context of Laneway Festival Singapore 2015, the event was not primarily about the music - it was about fulfilling the needs of the young festival goer. In that respect, it was clearly a roaring success yet again.

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