Sydney Festival, now with over thirty strong years under its belt, has cemented its status as the city’s premiere annual event. This year, the Keystone Festival Bar has proven an especially popular venue, providing the atmosphere of a traditional festival but without the long queues and abundance of Southern Cross tattoos. Taking to the stage of this fantastic pop-up venue on January 12 was Sons and Daughters, Songs and The Laurels.

Sydney band The Laurels are on first and provide a great start to the night. The group don’t speak to the crowd and leave a loop pedal on between songs, meaning every song they play blends together. The band experience a couple of problems with sound throughout their set, with the singer’s voices sometimes suffering from feedback and at times muffled under the guitars. That having said, the minor sound issues don’t detract a lot from their show as the long and dreamy guitar solos providing something you can easily get lost in for a few minutes.

The Laurels create a great atmosphere and its clear the band are comfortable with each other on stage, as they move through each song effortlessly. They keep their “shoegazer” image for the whole set and wander off stage without so much as a ‘goodbye’ or ‘thank you’, leaving us to wait for Songs.

Songs arrive on stage without fuss and their opening track is short. They move quickly through their set, and like The Laurels don’t waste time with introductions or banter. Some feedback can be heard early on and it’s hard to hear singer and guitarist Max Doyle’s voice at times, but Ela Stiles’ voice is strong enough to be heard over the band – and she sounds amazing.

My only criticism is that the intense concentration the band are clearly giving to playing makes it hard to feel engaged, until they reach their final song which is clearly their favourite to play together and the highlight of the set. It feels like the band have only just started to warm up when they stop abruptly, and when they exit the stage I’m disappointed – I want to see them play more.

Then Sons and Daughters arrive and lead singer Adele Bethel is energetic from the start. Despite being “fucking delirious with jetlag”, she jumps while she’s not singing or goes and touches guitarist Scott Paterson on the shoulder during the guitar solos. She almost falls over towards the end of the set and jokes: “I’m a bit of a dick, just to warn ya!” Paterson talks to us about how long it took to get to Australia but Bethel interrupts and says “Whattya doin’, havin’ a moan? Moaning Scottish bastard!”

Early on, they face the same problem as the other bands with the vocals sometimes becoming lost under the guitars, but Bethel’s voice gets stronger as the night goes on. She can be heard a lot more clearly from the middle of the set, when they play Taste The Last Girl. The band has a strong stage presence – Paterson and bass player Ailidh Lennon are almost as animated as Bethel – and their enthusiasm is contagious.

The group’s set list is a mix of old and new songs, with Johnny Cash and Fight from their first album making appearances. Singles from 2011’s album Mirror Mirror, Rose Red and Breaking Fun get a great reception, but the highlight is the last song of the night, Dance Me In. Bethel’s voice is perfect while she gets us all to dance and clap. She surprises us by slipping in lyrics from Goldfrapp’s song Ooh La La and they fit perfectly at the end of the chorus.

After a great set, Sons and Daughters thank us and wave goodbye as they walk off stage to cheers and claps from a rightly satisfied Sydney Festival crowd.