Photo: Charlie Hardy.

Written by Jules Ventura. Photos courtesy of Laneway Festival.

What comes after a few years of heavy losses in Australia’s music festival scene, is the 2025 St. Jerome’s Laneway Festival, AKA our knight in shining armour.

Tickets went on sale on at 10am on the 15th of October and were completely sold out for both the Sydney and Melbourne event within the day. This being a first for the now 20-year running festival. A festival that was conceived out of a tiny speak-easy bar, deep within Melbourne’s CBD. A bar entered via Caledonian Lane, home to some of the city’s finest rats and rank garbage bins (so they say). Over the summer of 2004, weekly shows began flooding out onto the lane and before they knew it, co-founders Borazio and Rogers had found themselves with a festival on their hands.

While Laneway is no stranger to a packed line-up, this year clearly seems to be the outlier and boy isn’t it healing?

Charlie XCX by Harley Weir.

One artist in particular seemed to have quite the chokehold on us all this past euro summer, or for us folk back in the southern hemisphere, I guess I should say, Aussie winter. While the rest of the world frolicked in the sun, declaring BRAT summer over and over and over, we bitterly watched on while freezing our backsides off. And just when we thought we would be left out again (damn you Australia for being so far away), thou faithful Laneway saves the day. Thanks for thinking of us Charli, BRAT summer shall be extended for the better good.

Sharing the stage with Ms. XCX is fellow UK resident, bedroom-pop queen Beabadoobee and Laneway veteran, Clairo. While we’ll also see, Irish electronic duo, Bicep and Scottish producer, Barry Can’t Swim return to Australia to join these three in the headline. And as much as I’d love to promise you that you could catch their shows elsewhere this summer, these artists have signed on as Laneway exclusives, sorry folks. So, unless you secured yourself a ticket, I wish you well in the tixel line my friends.

Clairo. Beabadoobee by Jules Moskovtchenko.

Being a queer Gen Z baby myself, I was personally sold at the fact that three female artists were headlining this fruitful line-up. And when I say fruitful line-up, you can go right ahead and assume it is an ode to Clairo’s and Beabadoobee’s queerness. Two artists that were actually among those that provided a space for me to understand my own sexuality, all those years ago. And while Charli may not be one of us, her latest re-release of her hit song ‘Guess’ featuring Billie Eilish, made all of our gay little hearts SCREAM. With a gender ratio like this, yet to have been seen in a laneway headline and an evident touch of fruitiness, this one is clearly for the girls and the gays.

While some have deemed this line-up ‘top-heavy’, I beg to differ. We’re seeing a first Australian show from quite a few of these artists and if you haven’t heard of them yet, you can thank me now for introducing you to them.

Olivia Dean, who is among the list of artists coming down under for a first time, is definitely someone to add to that Sunday morning playlist. With a few EP’s under her belt and her first album ‘Messy’ being released only midway through 2023, she has already established a bit of a cult following and rightly bloody so. Existing in the space of where neo-soul intersects pop, she is one artist you’ll find yourself having listened to her entire discography and wishing there was more.

Oliva Dean, Rona., Fcukers

Changing lanes ever so slightly, Rona. is a Mpartnwe and Naarm based producer who has gained recognition from a unique exploration of different sounds. Being a proud Kaytetye person, she explores how the dessert soundscapes from her home interact with the sounds found on the city dance floors that we so often frequent. It’s a multilayered immersive vortex, that you just don’t want to leave. Watch her 2024 Boiler Room set and you will know exactly what I mean.

Fcukers are also a band to keep an eye out for, providing us with that ’90s house sound we so desperately yearn to move our bodies to. These two have been selling out shows all over NYC and have already gained the likes of artists like Beck, Dom Dolla and fellow stage holder, Clairo. It’s probably safe to assume that they’re on the verge of something rather large. There will be Laneway debuts from these Aussie artists: Girl and Girl, Ninajirachi and STÜM. And to top it all off, our ears will be blessed by Skeggs, playing their new album ‘Pacific Highway Music’ on home soil for a first time. A record that has given new meaning to that garage rock genre they do so well.

Laneway Festival programming coordinator Ruby Miles said in a statement: ‘This has to be my favourite Laneway line-up we’ve ever put together – I’m such a fangirl of all of these artists!’ Me too Ruby, me too. So, while we continue to mourn the loss of other festivals like our dear beloved Splendour, we shall sleep peacefully tonight knowing Laneway just seems to be getting better and better.