Posts by Russell Brown
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Hard News: Fix up, young men, in reply to Heather Gaye,
Saw someone mention a prevalence of bassy dance music, and I noticed that element on the day. I wonder if that’s part of it.
I do wonder. But when that bass music includes the overtly feminist Grimes, who do you do?
I did think there was less general crowd hassle this year, and plenty of lovely people to watch. But also, the meatheads.
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Another report, on Twitter, from James Dann.
And as he points out, how can you filter for this by changing the lineup when this happens during a performance by an overtly feminist pop star?
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Hard News: Fix up, young men, in reply to Marcelo Rodriguez Ferrere,
and it's enough to put me off from these sorts of events, since I just can't see that sort of scenario being prevented or stopped in the future. Ugh.
And yet, that's letting them win As I noted, the irony is that this was in other ways a festival of strong, creative women.
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Richie Hardcore has written strongly about this too:
Last night, my girlfriend was accosted, live on national television, by two boys who thought it would be cool to grope her, get in her space and yell the sexually aggressive phrase "fuck her right in the pussy." Apparently it's a popular viral internet thing to do if you're a rapey pissed up fuck boi. It's funny some say. Despite having boys she didn't know touch her without permission and embarrass her on TV, I thought she played it pretty cool live on air, laughing it off as girls the world over seem to learn to do in our culture. The thing is, they shouldn't have to.
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Hard News: Friday Music: Jean's Laneway, in reply to Jean Hughes,
I saw another couple of guys at random throughout the day – their first Laneways and they were sailing very very high at East India Youth – laughing, happy, smiley, gorgeous young lads – and still just as bouncy and happy when I last saw them at the end of Grimes – thats the sort of fueling effects I like.
Yes – there were thousands of happy, high-as-kites people there.
Jean, I feel weirdly guilty about this, having highlighted your excellent expectations for the day in the post above. Doesn't make sense, I know, but I do.
I've written a post about it, with some more reports of such incidents yet to come in. We have to stop this.
In the meantime, Jean, I have two complimentary tickets to Auckland City Limits for you. And this time, I will get you into the industry-wanker bar :-)
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Hard News: Friday Music: Jean's Laneway, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
Very saddened to hear of your experience, Jean – so much for music uniting the soul and spirit (and soothing the savage breast), where were security or police,
There were security guards and police, but it's hard for them to work in a huge stage-front crowd like this. You rely on the decency of people around you. I suppose the munters were going to be there at Hermitude, but it's still vile and depressing.
or even a basic terms and conditions of entry – ‘thou shalt not hassle or abuse other attendees without being evicted’ – the modern NZ is becoming an uglier place, day by day…
I feel acutely aware that upthread I praised the mood of the crowd. And I wasn't wrong – in general, it was really nice. There were lots of women in the crowd (and for that matter, on stage) having a great, safe time.
I'm willing to bet the morons who bullied Jean and her friend looked quite like the yobs who gatecrashed Kim Vinnell's live cross. She went and confronted them yesterday, and they turned out to be sad clowns who seemed proud of having preloaded heavily on some sort vile alcopops. Booze has a lot to answer for.
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Hard News: Friday Music: Jean's Laneway, in reply to Jean Hughes,
Then over for a brief listen to QT but the day had spoiled, tiredness had been given an in and I even flagged Flume to go home.
So sad that my last Silo Laneway ended not with a bang but a whimper.
And today I see we were not the only women whose Laneways was disrupted by bad mannered men.Oh Jean, I feel really angry about this. I suppose it makes sense that Hermitude would attract the morons, but this is just horrible and unacceptable.
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Polity: Protesting too much: responses…, in reply to George Darroch,
I also get the impression that you’d welcome content from others, if their writing was constructive, insightful, and not nakedly partisan.
Anything well-argued and authentic, basically.
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Hard News: Friday Music: Jean's Laneway, in reply to bob daktari,
some promoters and venues here in Auckland have taken to posting set times the day of the show, usually on Facebook or places like undertheradar and cheeseontoast – doesn’t mean they will be early but at the least you know what you’re in for
I greatly appreciate this practice.
never enjoyed late shows… bands are bad enough but I really hated it when there was a trend in DJ land the international would start at 4am…
Ridiculous.
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Well, that was the first time I’ve rocked up to a Laneway (or BDO) as late as 6pm And it was great.
My buddy and I convened at 2pm, went down the Chev for a swim, had a beer, made an early dinner on the barbecue (fajitas with corn and tomato salsa) and generally hung out while everyone else was getting their heads baked on the asphalt at Laneway. 95bFM was good enough to air really good-sounding live excerpts from Nadia Reid, Leisure, Lontalius, The Internet, Shamir and more.
And then we arrived during Battles’ excellent, rousing set, cool and refreshed. There was some terrible evidence of poor sun-safe practices already on display. It was kind of revelatory starting the evening without being tired. There was barely a queue for drink vouchers or to redeem them at the bars.
We moved across the carpark to Hermitude, who were okay, but down the dumber end of the bass music thing that was big at Laneway this year. So it was off to the bar to see friends, then back out for Courtney Barnett, who was pretty much like she was a year ago, but still great. It’s fun the way people like to loudly sing along with her. (And when I say “people”, I mean me.)
Lots of people loved Grimes – how could you not, she’s a phenomenon – but her voice didn’t always cut through for me. So we decamped to Beach House at the Cactus Cat stage and they were … spellbinding. Their swirling, reverby guitar-and-keyboards thing was entrancing and Victoria Legrand is a great big ball of onstage charisma. Wow.
The stage is bigger, wider and better-provisioned than it’s ever been before and it really made a difference. At times in the past, Cactus Cat has just been a frustration, but it was a bloody triumph this year.
On the way back to another break at the bar for Churches (who still sound bland to me) we stopped by the Thunderdome, where the sides have been opened up so there’s no need to regulate entry – which works way better. Sophie had missed his flight but his DJ, QT, was there, DJing crazy beats on her own. Mad crowd. Lots of fun!
Flume was good on last at the big stage – all huge, crunchy bass and swathes of keyboard – and he dropped his remix of Lorde’s ‘Tennis Court’.
But I wish we’d gone over to see Purity Ring even sooner, because they were, frankly, incredible. It’s customary for modern festival acts to put on big visual shows, but I’ve never seen contemporary dance/indie music so beautifully wrapped into a cohesive work of art. The lights, the theatre, everything. Wow again.
I dunno, maybe next year (when Laneway will be in Auckland Domain, maybe) I’ll return to arriving early to see more acts, but doing it differently this year worked out bloody well.
And a word for the punters. While, inevitably, a few of them peaked too early, in general the atmosphere was really nice. It’s the nature of these multi-stage events that people want to move around – in, out, back, forward – and everyone seemed to get how to respond to that. Crowd sense is a really important thing at big events like this. Well done, everyone.
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