Looking Back on Laneway 2016

By Ben Stephens.

My favourite summer music festival passed through the harbour city last weekend, bringing with it a host of extremely talented musicians and thirsty, eager-to-dance Sydneysiders. It was one of those days where everything came together in the most wonderful way. The weather was ideal, the setting was supreme and the crowd was in love with it all… *currently goose bumping*.

As festivals go, Laneway holds a certain ‘je ne sais quoi’ that separates it from every other festival that makes the journey to Sydney shores. It’s hard to pinpoint the one thing that makes Laneway an incredible day, so I have listed the highlights that make Laneway, Laneway.

Location

The Sydney College of Arts is situated in Rozelle, a short trip from the city centre. Everything about this space is astonishing; the rolling grass hills at which the two main stages sit at the bottom, the palm trees that line the horizon and the straight out mad architecture of the sandstone heritage buildings that hug the the festival. The layout of the college helps to create the unique space to hide stages away from each other and makes getting from stage to stage a short walk with the masses.

Line Up

From Ali Banter and East India Youth to Purity Ring, Chvrches and Flume, the 2016 line up was always going to be the highlight. The Smith Street Band made the afternoon slip by with their classic Australian vibe that was a hit with the crowd. Early evening, saw the Brisbane boys from Violent Soho produce some classic crowd surfing shots from photographer Pat Stevenson. Equally, Grimes had a hill of humans adoring her take on pop music. Chvrches, as they usually do, had a flawless set and then to close out the main stage, Sydney boy, Flume took to the stage with some new, darker material ahead of his upcoming album. I could go on as to who was the best set, but I’ll be frank and rather cliché, every band made Laneway their own, another reason in itself why this festival is so damn rad.

Food

The food selection wasn’t just festival eats, it was next level stuff. The culinary teams from Marys Burgers, LP’s Quality Meats, Argentinian BBQ gods Porteno, Mexican magicians Playa Taqueria and Yulli’s bringing home the vegan goodness of South-East Asian eats. On top of all this, there was fresh seafood on offer and Messina was there to make sure dessert was a meal that was skipped in between sets.

Vibe

With all the goodness mentioned above, it was just too hard not to have a rad day out at Laneway. The crowd was enjoying every part of it, from helping strangers off the ground to keeping toilet lines short. The chilled out surrounds, mad line up and solid eating choices see Laneway 2016 as one of the favourite festivals.