I’m not usually one to arrive fashionably early to an event, but in the case of St. Jerome’s Laneway Festival I was willing to make an exception. Newly signed to Modular, Perth trio Tame Impala had been the talk of Meredith last year, receiving big props from MGMT whom they supported on their tour of Australia. Opening on the Lonsdale St stage at 12pm, Tame Impala ably demonstrated why they have been slated as ones to watch in 2009. Barefoot, long-haired and sporting Hanes t-shirts and Nike shorts (old, not vintage), the boys – who look all of seventeen years old – treated the crowd to psychedelic, Cream-esque gems including the bewitching ‘Desire Be, Desire Go’ and a delicious cover of Blue Boy’s ‘Remember Me’. After four tracks, however, it was all over, much to the crowd’s dismay. TI weren’t shy in expressing their disgruntlement either – complaining that it was ‘the council’ who had prevented them from playing any longer by forcing them to start late. Still, you couldn’t accuse them of not going out on a high note, and I suspect that leaving the audience gagging for more might just work in the band’s favour.

New chicks on the block, Melbourne all-woman five-piece Beaches followed, continuing the psy-rock trend with extended dreamy guitar sequences and lilting harmonies. The sounds of Tame Impala and Beaches were the perfect accompaniment to the first beers of the day, sun bearing down defiantly on the rapidly filling stage. Many others were doubtless still trying to get in. Despite my early arrival the queues were already lining Swanston St for two blocks on both sides of the road. Lining up to get into a festival is par for the course. What myself, and many fellow Laneway attendees did not perhaps expect, was to then have to wait to gain entry into each and every separate stage.

Next I planned to head to the Red Bull stage, where I was hoping to catch Canyons (fortunately, I’d printed out an updated copy of the timetable the night before. The brochures, complete with timetables that were handed out upon entry, contained a few discrepancies meaning that some who thought they were going to be seeing Four Tet ended up seeing Canyons instead). I arrived at the front of the queue to be informed that the stage was now full, and that access was only permitted to the Lounge stage. There too was a line a mile long, situated next to a row of portaloos. Handy should you need to empty your bladder, not so handy should you wish to inhale fresh air rather than the stench of hot urine. I flagged that idea and wandered around the back to see if rear entry was possible. No such luck. Frustrated, I returned to the front where the queue had abated, but ran into my friends, who were in the process of leaving the Red Bull stage. They pronounced the Canyons “shit” – their words, not mine – and we headed to Little Lonsdale St stage instead to catch some of Born Ruffians, who engaged the crowd in good-natured, sunny indie-rock. Shame their clever lyrics were practically inaudible from twenty metres back.

Determined to see what all the fuss was about at the Red Bull stage, we headed back to catch the last of Hermitude’s set only to be held up at the entrance yet again for “security reasons”. I overheard one security guard telling a patron she was just as frustrated as we all were – they hadn’t anticipated such logic-defying obstacles either. Fortunately we were allowed through after only a few minutes of haggling, but as soon as we got in I wondered why we had bothered. A friend more into the dubstep genre than myself likened Hermitude to “lying on top of a runaway locomotive going at half speed, rhythms enough to send you to sleep, but bouncy enough to keep you moving, all the while feeling free, kinda reckless and a tad excited”. Decent beats aside, the “full stage” was actually a narrow, half-occupied alley that stank of piss worse than the portaloos, and the sound was somewhat muffled at best. It was at this stage that I noticed that people were, indeed, pissing in the alley. In a gargantuan organisational oversight, said portaloos and all other toilets were located OUTSIDE the stages, the exception being the Lounge club which naturally has its own set of WCs. Faced with the prospect of having to line up to get in again if they chose to take a leak in the provided loos, male and female punters alike decided to do their business behind sound stages instead.

Disappointed with the Red Bull stage, we made a beeline for the Lounge to catch the last twenty minutes of Yves Klein Blue. Again, we were told that the venue was at capacity, but we finally got in just after YKB had finished. A real shame as I heard they were great. The bar was suspiciously un-full, but we took advantage of the outdoor balcony and enjoyed the first genuinely cold drinks of the day – the Lounge were the only place serving ice. By far the most comfortable venue of the festival, we were happy to hang around and check out the next act, Pivot. The best thing I’d seen since Tame Impala opened, Pivot lit a fuse inside the Lounge with captivating experimental electronica that never veered so far left as to lose its musicality. I then headed back to Little Lonsdale St to catch a glimpse of Cut Off Your Hands. Torn between COYH and The Temper Trap, who were playing on the Lonsdale St stage, I went with the former for the simple reason that they were being followed by the Drones, Architecture in Helsinki and Girl Talk, and I suspected that the stage would fill quickly.

I was not wrong. COYH did a good job playing the sort of anthemic Brit-pop rock that has won them so many excitable fans, and the stage was near packed. An attempt I made to get closer to the front proved futile short of a shitfight, particularly as the familiar strains of ‘Happy As Can Be’ rang out. I opted for another drink instead. On most occasions, getting a drink was one of the few things about the festival that was relatively easy. At least it was until early on during Architecture in Helsinki’s Lt Lonsdale St set, when I was informed that the bar had run out of lemonade and was forced to upgrade to Red Bull. Then, bafflingly, the same bar ceased service of alcohol altogether at about 8pm. The reason given; crowd rowdiness. Pardon us for getting a little excitable at a MUSIC FESTIVAL. Later reports suggest that due to the fullness of the stage, festival organisers were attempting to encourage punters to leave the Little Lonsdale St stage in search of alcohol. I didn’t return to the bar for the remainder of the night, and therefore can’t vouch for whether or not the booze began flowing again, but I can tell you that the stage was rammed from Architecture In Helsinki onwards. Cunning punters headed to Strike bowling bar without having to leave the stage, where they were treated to air conditioning, clean(ish) public toilets and unrestricted alcohol. Strike had never had it better.

Architecture In Helsinki played a typically uplifting set at a time when some uplifting was sorely needed. Highlights was a singalong, modernised version of Unique II’s ‘Break My Stride’ and Triple J favourite ‘That Beep’. Bubblegum techy, party-friendly pop for the masses. And then it was time for the man we’d all been waiting for to take to the stage. Some of us, quite literally. Many ticket holders waiting to see Girl Talk – aka Gregg Gillis – for up to two hours or more were turned away. Some frustrated punters attempted to climb the State Library fence, others tried to jump the barricades. Most failed. Myself and friends managed to nab a position at the front left side of the stage, to the left of the lighting tent. We still couldn’t see shit and it wasn’t nearly loud enough, but Girl Talk still managed to excite most. From cuts of Don Henley’s ‘The Boys of Summer’ to electrifying mash ups of Stardust’s ‘Music Sounds Better With You’ and Michael Jackson’s ‘Don’t Stop Til You Get Enough’ to 2 Live Crew’s obnoxious ‘We Want Some Pussy’, we danced in what little space we had whilst desperadoes attempted to climb down from apartment blocks and received a stern dressing down from Gillis in the process.

At the end of the day, I enjoyed myself, but had I not been fortunate enough to have a media pass I don’t know that I would have been able to say the same thing. Regardless, clashes and poor management meant that I missed some amazing acts that I would have loved to witness, including the Hold Steady, Buraka Som Sistema and the much-hyped dubstep master Rusko. We can only hope that next year Jerome and co take a more common-sense approach to the logistical side of things.