Local Natives, Sun Hands

I’m not going to Laneway tomorrow. There are various reasons – not least that I’m still reeling from the appallingly ignorant and incompentent set-up last year, and there’s also the fact that I spent too much over the festive season and didn’t get round to buying a ticket.

I’m also pissed off that NZ is sucking, once again, on the hind teat when it comes to the line-up. I would have liked to see Local Natives, Cut Copy and Menomena, thanks very much – in fact they were the reason I would have gone. But they’re not coming this way. 

But probably the biggest reason I’m not going to Laneway is that that the moment the line-up was announced was the first time in my life that I’ve actually felt out of the loop. I had to face up to the fact that… well, perhaps I’m no longer down with the kids. I confess I didn’t actually know who some of the bands were.

So I did some cursory research – and was horrified to realise that a) half these bands sound like they take their inspiration from “easy listening 80s” (see Yeasayer) and jeepers, that stuff sounded bad enough the first time; and b) I’ve become a fogey.

(I’m also still scarred by memories of seeing !!! play in London many years ago – as my dear friend Eli B summarised, “The band is OK, but the lead singer needs some serious work. He’s the man who thinks party is a noun, verb AND adjective. After the 10th time he said ‘Yeah! Come on and party!’, we were calling him the ‘frat-rocker of post-punk’.” Embarrassingly hideous.)

So yes, I’ll probably regret not going, but them’s the breaks. I’ll stay at home and listen to my Local Natives album instead, possibly with a woollen blanket over my knees.