Since its inception in 2004, St Jerome’s Laneway Festival has built a solid reputation for booking ‘buzz’ bands and acts on the cusp of mainstream success – Florence & The Machine, Mumford & Sons,Temper Trap and Gotye to name a few. As a result, the majority of acts on the Laneway line-up are more or less new to the scene. This year for example, the average number of years a band on the line-up has been active was just four. Take out ‘veterans’ like Feist, M83, and The Panics and that average is even lower.

Although the strong emphasis on somewhat ‘underground’ talent is one of the appeals of Laneway for many people, such a fresh line-up also creates a situation where you have people there to check out a band of which they know just one (albeit maybe great) song, making it difficult for even the most talented acts to form a connection with the crowd. Add to this the logistical nightmare that is the Sydney College of the Arts and you’re left with a somewhat lacklustre day.

Gripes aside, there were some acts that managed to rise above these challenges and evoke a pretty solid crown reaction and surprisingly, many of these acts were the more electronically inclined of the day.

This year’s line-up was one of the danciest in Laneway’s history, no doubt due the festival’s close relationship with UK Label Young Turks, through which they’ve booked many acts over the years including Holy Fuck, El Guincho and The xx.

Of the acts representing Young Turks this year, SBTRKT, was by far the most tantalising. Far from his experience at US festivals where, as he recently told inthemix, he was “considered this almost unrecognisably, left-field, chill out, weird DJ”, SBTRKT’s popularity in Australia is unwavering (his track Wildfire recently placed at #79 in Triple J’s Hottest 100). It was therefore no shock that his closing set proved to have strong pulling-power, even up against other big act of the day, M83. Performing this time in ‘live’ format SBTRKT shared his time between the decks and drums and was joined on stage by vocalist Sampha.

Although he had little chance playing at the same time as M83 and label mate SBTRKT, special mention must go to other member of the Young Turks camp and blogosphere man of the moment John Talabot who churned out an unrelenting and downright joyous set to a small but VERY enthusiastic group (you couldn’t really call it a ‘crowd’). If you ever get a chance to see this man in action, do.

Controversial as the phrase is, there was a strong presence of ‘Chillwave-esque’ acts on this year’s line-up with Active Child, Glasser, Toro Y Moi, Washed Out and M83 all sending their tune floating through the crowd.

As one of the ‘buzziest’ artists on the line-up, Active Child was a crowd puller, with people practically climbing on each other to catch a glimpse of the boy with the angelic voice and the harp. Once he’d played Hanging On however, there was a mass exodus, leaving anyone who cared to stay with much more room to sway in the hot sun to his R&B influenced sounds.

While his profile may not be as big as some of the other acts on the bill, Toro Y Moi surfaced as one of the best acts of the day. It’s pretty difficult not to at least tap your feet to Chazwick Bundick’s funky tunes and as the sun set and the mid-strength beers kicked in, the crowd finally began to show some general enthusiasm towards the day.

‘So many people here, oh shit!” exclaimed M83 front man Anthony Gonzalez. Not surprising really, given their latest single Midnight City is one of the most popular indie tunes of the summer, even placing at #5 in the Hottest 100. Despite having the biggest back catalogue of any band on the Laneway tour (six studio albums since forming in 2001) M83 are no doubt a new addition to many people’s iTunes library as a result of the cut-through success of their latest album, Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming.

So while the newer tracks proved to be the most popular, M83 did a fine job of capturing the crowd’s attention throughout their whole set with great lighting, big bass and heavy guitar riffs. Hit Kim & Jessie flowed seamlessly into a cowbell heavy, almost dub-step re-interpretation of We Own the Sky before they bowed to demand playing Midnight City with drums so deafening I couldn’t help but feel sorry for SBTRKT on the next stage. And while the rest of the day was overall a bit so/so, I have no doubt M83 fans both old and new still managed to walk away somewhat satisfied.