It’s the end of Brat summer as we know it and we all feel fine. Charli xcx’s exclusive headline slot is the major drawcard for the 20th year of St Jerome’s Laneway festival, as the British hyperpop star runs a victory lap for her Grammy-winning album, Brat. At the first leg of the Australian festival, a sold-out Brisbane Showgrounds is teeming with punters bedecked in the album’s signature lime green.
It’s a victory lap of sorts for Laneway, too, one of the last festivals of its kind in a rapidly shrinking Australian live landscape (last month, Splendour in the Grass and Groovin the Moo were both canned for the second year in a row). What started as a small boutique event in an inner-city Melbourne laneway now boasts crowds of tens of thousands, and tours around the country and even overseas. It feels like what the Big Day Out once was but for a new generation, and the very young crowd reflect that. The downside is that Laneway’s personality now feels diluted – it has become a festival for the masses. What was once an opportunity for punters to discover new, smaller artists has shifted towards a smorgasbord of who’s hot right now, particularly online.
