Laneway Weekend

Last weekend, I was back in Singapore for Laneway Festival. I heard about it from a friend who watched the SG run last year. As I’ve gathered, the LF started in Australia and New Zealand, and only had its first show in SG in 2010. It’s  a 12-hour long concert in an open field featuring a long lineup of indie artists. I thought it must be fun to watch a concert in SG showcasing a bunch of young, talented, and non-mainstream bands. The last (and only) concert I watched outside the country was the DMB concert in Ohio 7 years ago. I really enjoyed that, except for that part when we got drenched in the rain and a 6-feet tall drunk person almost fell on the ground a few steps away from us. Also, I know I won’t get to experience Coachella anytime soon so this is probably the closest thing I’d get to a similar event.

So I waited for the band list to come out before I decided to go. There were 14 bands in all, each with a 45-minute airtime. For me, “Of Monsters and Men” and “Gotye” were enough reasons for me to book a plane ticket and buy a concert pass:

I didn’t want to take a leave from work so I squeezed in my trip to fit the weekend. My flight from Manila was at 9 pm, and my departure from Singapore was at 3 am on Monday. Thankfully there were no speedbumps (literally and figuratively) along the way.

While I was at the airport departure area (eating an overpriced rice meal for dinner), two girls in their twenties (and i say that like I wasn’t in my twenties a year ago. haha) were talking about the concert. Apparently, they were going to SG for LF as well. I felt like such a lola as they talked about being excited “to see all the hipster kids”. I wondered how we would place in a hipster event and just wished there were more people there our age. :))

My good friend Grace adopted me for the weekend (thank youuuu Grace :D). We woke up in time for lunch on Saturday and ate at Maxwell near Chinatown. We passed by the lomo store first where I had my La Sardina checked. The nice lady at the store assured me there’s nothing wrong with my cam, so I was able to use it for the rest of the afternoon. Yay. It was a consolation since we weren’t allowed to bring professional cameras at the concert.

We had no plans of watching the concert from start to finish – I just wanted to see Of Monsters and Men, Gotye, Alt-J, Real Estate, and Bat for Lashes. A friend who was also watching the concert was alarmed that I wasn’t going to see the show from the start, especially since Kings of Convenience was opening the show. It must’ve been nice to see KOC, but I really just wanted to conserve my energy for the other bands, especially Gotye. My lola powers couldn’t extend to 12 hours. Hehe

This permanent fixture at the Gardens by the Bay greeted us before we entered the concert grounds. I don’t know what aesthetic/existential purpose this serves:

We entered the Meadow, Gardens by the Bay minutes before Of Monsters and Men started playing. OMAM was simply awesome. I couldn’t believe I was only a few meters away from them during their performance. I loved all their songs, even those I wasn’t familiar with. I took videos as they were playing my favorite song, “King and Lionheart” and their more popular single, “Little Talks”. We were distracted though by the sunburned kids milling around who must’ve been there since noon.

After the first set, we decided to go for a restroom turned merienda break :)) I had milk tea and kaya butter toast.

When we returned, Nicolas Jaar was playing, followed by Kimbra.

Lolas @ Laneway :)) Half the time, we kept ourselves entertained by watching all the interesting people pass by.

At about the same time, we saw two schoolmates from law school. We stayed with them for a while until we got up to watch the great performance by Bat for Lashes.

Real Estate was also a delight to watch:

The weather was perfect. I was told that it has been humid/rainy the past few days, but it didn’t rain at all the whole day. It was breezy. There was a full moon out so it wasn’t as dark.

For dinner, we had chicken murtabak leftovers and some chicken poppers ℅ our friends.

We were standing the entire three hours from Bat for Lashes until the last act, Gotye. Thank you Grace, for standing with me the entire time, even if there was imminent risk that we’d get hit on the head by a giant light cube and pushed around by drunk couples passionately making out. Hehe. I swear I felt so exhausted already as Tame Impala was playing (I’m not really a fan), but I wanted to be near the stage when Gotye played.

Gotye began to play and their performance was excellent. I didn’t even know if it was the lead singer under all that hair. LOL. They played a few unfamiliar tunes (outside the Making Mirrors album). I told myself I’ll be contented with “Save Me'” and it will be the only song I’ll record. I ended up recording “Eyes Wide Open” and parts of “Somebody That I Used to Know.” I had to delete a lot of photos and apps from my phone just to have room for the videos. (I didn’t come prepared, I know). “Eyes Wide Open” is the first Gotye song I ever heard (thanks to my niece who posted it on her FB wall years ago, even before “Somebody..” went viral). I actually didn’t like “Somebody..” when I first heard it and I was partial to “Save Me”, but I got to appreciate it eventually. And it was definitely fun to watch the band perform it live. Kimbra went back onstage to sing her part.

The best part was, the lead singer made a special shout out to the Philippines! He first mentioned Singapore and Malaysia. And he mentioned only those three countries. I wish they’d consider holding a concert here in the near future. I’ll watch them again if they do.

A video taken before Gotye sang “Save Me” (FYI, I didn’t take part in singing. Hehe)

In all, it was a great experience. Next time, we’ll come prepared (i.e., with a giant mattress and a personal assistant). And I made a short playlist of some of my fave songs from Laneway  just because: