FEB 18 — Despite having the privilege of studying in the United Kingdom for three years when I was pursuing my degree, I’d never managed to attend any of the famed music festivals there. The combination of being a MARA scholar and the unfortunate timing of being there when the late 90s economic downturn struck meant that I was very much a poor student who had to rely almost exclusively on my sponsor’s monthly allowance to survive.
Imagine, £1 was around RM8 or more, as it was back then. With parents who are teachers, asking for money wasn’t really an option, so I had to make do with what I had. Thus, I fulfilled my twin passion for music and films by going through the bargain bins in record and video shops and only attending cheap shows in small venues as that’s all I could afford to do.
Even attending a Tottenham Hotspur game was out of the question for me as the ticket to a match was almost 1/7th of my monthly allowance, and about 2/7th of that had already gone to purchasing London Transport monthly travelcards for my daily trips to university.
I’ve always told myself though that, one day, when I’ve earned enough money on my own, I will have this festival experience, provided there are enough bands in the festival line-up to make me think it’s worth shelling out the money.
I’ve attended quite a few music festivals already since I started working in 2002, like our very own Rock The World, Baybeats in Singapore and Fat Festival in Thailand. Actually, I’ve even played in all three of them with my band, Couple.
Maybe it’s just my colonialised mind, or maybe it’s simply because the rock music festival is very much a “white man’s” (or “orang putih” as we put it) creation, but I finally felt like I was at a real music festival last weekend, with the compulsory white people bands playing, and loads of white people in attendance partying the day and night away.
The festival was St Jerome’s Laneway Festival 2012, making its second appearance in Singapore this year. It’s probably a sort of niche festival, as most of the acts on the festival’s line-up will draw blank stares from your typical man on the street, the most famous one surely being Canadian singer-songwriter Feist.
But I guess the global indie music industry is big and widespread enough to have thousands of fans from across the region happily shelling out S$135 and S$150 for tickets to attend the festival, not to mention the extra dough needed to fly out to Singapore and for accommodation.
I took a bus from Kuala Lumpur and when my bus stopped for a break in Pagoh, I met quite a few familiar faces who were on other buses also stopping there on their way to Singapore to attend the festival.
As I was wandering around Orchard Road after I arrived in Singapore, I also bumped into a few more familiar faces from Malaysia, not to mention meeting a few Malaysian girls who were also staying at the same backpacker hostel as I was and who were also going to Laneway. So meriah!
In fact, I even bumped into some friends from Indonesia when I was hanging out with some Singaporean and Malaysian pals for late night snacks at a mamak shop, and I even made a few new Indonesian friends, whom I ended up hanging out with during the festival, when I saw a few hip looking Indonesian kids also staying at my backpacker hostel and casually said hi and just mentioned to them, “Laneway?” Even the two “mat salleh” girls who were my roommates turned out to be there just for the festival too.
As for the show itself, I actually only really wanted to see two bands. One is called Yuck, a UK band playing 90s-style American indie rock a la Dinosaur Jr and The Lemonheads, and the other one is The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart, an American band playing a mostly UK-influenced combination twee pop and shoegaze.
At first I moaned about the fact that Yuck was playing second, but I guess it turned out to be a blessing in disguise since that also meant that by turning up early I got to position myself at the very front and centre of the stage to see them play. And it was probably the best set of the day, too, as most people seem to agree with me about that when I talked to them. Happy!
The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart had a nightmare start during their first two songs as the sound system failed them, but after stopping for a bit for the technical people to correct whatever was the problem, they churned out what’s probably the most joyous set of the day with probably the loudest sing-along’s from the crowd. I can’t wait to see them again here in Kuala Lumpur soon.
I missed two acts because I was hungry and went out for dinner, but of the other acts I thought Feist gave a wonderful performance. Toro Y Moi sounded quite like The Jacksons (not The Jackson 5 okay, it’s the Jackson brothers’ late 70s to early 80s band that I’m referring to), M83 sounded like The Killers with a wee bit more synthesizers and programming, and a more nasally singer (and light shows, wow!), and the set by Girls was marred by below average sound, even if their songs are really good. I’ve never been a fan of The Drums and The Horrors, so I just watched without much interest and the same goes for the rest of the line-up.
But overall, it was still a great festival experience for me. Incredible heat, then a bit of rain, a lot of sweaty people dancing and getting drunk, lots of girls in skimpy clothes (my favourite!) and best of all the sight of some poor dude who was dead drunk at only 4pm, rolling on the ground trying to pick himself up and puking all over the place, it was a weekend to remember.
I hope next year’s line-up will be just as exciting!
* The views expressed here are the personal opinion of the columnist.
