St. Jerome’s Laneway Festival ’23
Sydney Showground, February 5
★★★★

The success of any music festival boils down to location and the quality of the acts, something Laneway Festival has got right more often than not since its inception in 2005.

The Sydney iteration is back after a three-year, pandemic-induced absence, moving from the 2020 site at the Domain to Sydney Showground, where the four stages, three of which are mercifully undercover and out of the blazing sun, are all close to each other.

So, the location, swarming with thousands of young people wearing what only young people can get away with, gets a solid tick, as does the genre-hopping line-up.

The buzziest act is Fred Again, aka 29-year-old Brit Fred Gibson, an artist known for striking vocal samples that imbue his dance music with melancholic emotional heft, although he’s equally adept at producing wall-shaking bangers that work on a purely physical level.

If Fred Again sounds like the latest Exhibit A in the tired “Rock is Dead” argument, then bolshy Dublin post-punk band Fontaines DC would like a loud word.

The five-piece do noisy, exciting, attitude-fuelled rock’n’roll, while frontman Grian Chatten, apparently channelling a loaded, tambourine-tapping Liam Gallagher, flails around looking like he’s set to launch his mic stand at any given moment.