Remembering St. Jerome's Laneway Festival 2018, four years later - photo gallery

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Remembering St. Jerome's Laneway Festival 2018, four years later - photo gallery

Four years ago, on the 27th of January, we saw the very last St. Jerome’s Laneway Festival in Singapore. For many of us, the start of the year meant only two things: trying to keep up with your new year’s resolution, and attending Laneway.

The staple Australian festival, known for parading off-left and alternative burgeoning acts instead of mega headliners, first arrived on our shores in 2011, bringing along the likes of the inimitable Beach House, powerhouse UK rockers Foals, and creators of the anthemic ‘Sweet Disposition’ The Temper Trap amongst others.

In 2012 they continued to grow; that year's iteration saw fourteen bands with two stages side by side, the first time a festival had ever done so in Singapore - allowing lesser waiting times in between sets. And of course, they didn't hold back with the line-up either, the likes of Charlift, Cults, Feist, Laura Marling, M83, The Drums, The Horrors, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, Toro Y Moi, and Yuck gracing the fields at Fort Canning Park.

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The expansion plans didn't stop there. Come 2013, the festival, which brought indie music lovers together planted their seed on The Meadow at Gardens By the Bay, allowing almost 10,000 in attendance. You should’ve gotten the memo by now - sporting bewildering line-ups always, the list of bands performing for 2013 saw Alt-J, Tame Impala, Kings of Convenience, Bat for Lashes, Kimbra, Real Estate, Policia, Of Monsters and Men, and Nicolas Jaar dominate conversations.

With a mammoth line-up of great bands yearly, one might begin to worry that the local scene might be dwarfed in its shadow. But in 2014 (peak tumblr era), Singaporean acts in the legendary band The Observatory and songstress Vandetta, who was hot off her self-titled EP joined the ranks with Chvrches, Daughter, Frightened Rabbit, Kurt Vile, Mount Kimbie, Jamie XX, The Jezabels, and many more artists.

This then became a recurring theme; Hanging Up The Moon, .gif, Cashew Chemists, Astreal, Intriguant, T-Rex, Riot !n Magenta, Fauxe/Mediocre Haircut Crew, Rah, Mean, alextbh, Obedient Wives Club, Amateur Takes Control, Tim De Cotta, Masia One, and THELIONCITYBOY have all played at the prestigious Laneway Festival since.

Unfortunately, in early October of 2018, when avid festival-goers usually start speculation on the imminent announcement of its line-up, Laneway Festival Singapore announced that the festival would no longer have a Singaporean leg. Emotions were all over the place, with disappointment and longing apparent in social media reactions as a legacy that was built over seven years became no more.

From the pride of seeing our homegrown bands performing to crowds of thousands, to seeing great overseas acts performing in the blistering heat and thunderous rains, screaming our lungs out, moments of euphoria, the soreness that takes over your body the next morning for a festival that celebrated the uncelebrated - these are the shared and sacred feelings that will never leave our minds.

Without further ado, journey on with us through this photo gallery of the very last Singaporean leg of St. Jerome’s Laneway Festival in 2018. Recount the moments you’ve had, the friends you made, and perhaps you might catch yourselves in one of our snaps.

Till the next time.