Revellers at the Outpost Lounge, Brisbane Laneway 2013

The peeps running the St Jerome’s Laneway Festival do an amazing job of picking artists many months before they make it big. A couple years ago it was Mumford & Sons and Florence and the Machine. This year’s lineup featured up-and-comers like Alt-J and Of Monsters and Men.

What they aren’t good at is considering people who work full-time. For the second time in three years, Brisbane’s Laneway was held on a Friday from about noon, meaning that seeing bands I would have loved to see (like The Men) was simply not an option.

That said, it was a great …half-day. Snakadaktal put on a summery afternoon set, a bit unpolished but enjoyable. Cloud Nothings were ferocious. We then checked out the markets and caught “Sleepless” from Flume, before returning to the “Eat Your Own Ears Stage” for the entire reason I bought tickets – Japandroids’ first ever Australian show, which did not disappoint. We thought we’d miss out on Chet Faker completely after his stage filled, but managed to sneak in to catch both “I’m Into You” and “No Diggity,” which were great. Divine Fits were a little disappointing, mostly because their afternoon sound didn’t suit their 9 pm slot.