Lost In The Laneway: Laneway 2026 Review

We’re driving to the Gold Coast today for our first festival of the year and the first Gold Coast edition of Laneway! Having relocated from its usual home in Brisbane, I’m excited to see what’s in store for my first ever Laneway festival and the line-up is stunning. I’ve been binge listening to the Spotify playlist, trying on every shade of pink to match my cowboy hat, and plotting my light rail journey, finally arriving at the bona fide ethereal pop-rock conference, with a splash of country for good measure.

This is what happened at Laneway 2025 on the Gold Coast/Kombemerri on February 7^th, 2025.

THE EVENT

Our event was born two decades ago, a humble Summer series on a Sunday arvo in the Melbourne lanes, which has blossomed into the multi-city spectacular it is today. This year saw Laneway migrate down south to the Gold Coast, making camp at Southport Sharks’ expansive ground for its four-stage festival. Each section of the venue seemed like entering a strange new world.

Initially, we lined up in a park at the Griffith University campus, where brightly coloured banners with fun cartoon creatures and doodling acted like a homing beacon for all the pop girl fans in the South-East corner. Well before midday, snake-like queues had begun to form and stretch over the parkland. When we were finally admitted, we found ourselves wandering through a nearby bushland and arriving in sight of the festival’s tent stage, Everything Ecstatic with tunes from Mid Drift already blaring, welcoming us and lifting our spirits after the wait in the overbearing sun.

Continuing along from the tent, we arrived at a metal bridge into the festival’s main hub, with the side-by-side main stages Good Better Best and Never Let It Rest allowing for quick transitions between each of the big acts of the day. Turning our back on those, we trekked up the hill and found ourselves at Joccy’s Stage, which was a shady relief underneath the green foliage spreading across the crowd area. I have to say, I really liked the intimate view here, especially as crowds began to overwhelm the tent and larger main area throughout the day.

With this massive event, we were treated to a range of food and drink options (and could hardly enjoy them for all the lines) and a nice range of sponsorships (thought I’m salty that we had no Wuthering Heights hair styling). I particularly liked JMC Academy’s photobooth and chill-out area and, of course, was grateful to the Red Frogs for having some snacks and sunscreen on hand!

OUR DAY

As per usual, we arrived bright and early, ready to get the most of out of our day as possible, with the first acts starting right as the gates opened! Stopping at each stage in turn, we started by joining the dance party at Mid Drift’s set in the Everything Ecstatic tent, before journeying on to the first of the main stage acts, opening with Blusher on Never Let It Rest!

A journey up the hill to explore Joccy’s Stage and stop by the photo booth was perfectly soundtracked by The Belair Lip Bombs in the shadier woodland of the smaller stage area. Regrettably, I passed up on Teen Jesus and the Jean Teasers to seek out some of my friends down the hill, though I am eager to catch their headline show later this year (and think you should be too!).

I’ll dive deeper into this in a moment, but I’ll preface that the rest of the day was spent seeing international acts. As always, my aim in writing these reviews is to promote Australian music, and I’m eager to do what I can to support this Australian music festival, who had a stacked line-up of international acts jump across the equator to perform for us today. After the Welcome To Country on Never Let It Rest, I caught some of the viral tunes of Gigi Perez and the sombre country vibe of Jensen McRae. Benee was closer to home, and I love her latest music, so I was glad to get a good viewing spot for her set at Joccy’s Stage, before heading to the pit of Good Better Best, where I had a nice view of Role Model, Wet Leg, Wolf Alice and Chappel Roan to close out the night – all of these bands were incredible… but there’s something they weren’t.

THE MUSIC

I feel ungrateful, and I’m not, because although I loved the music I was able to see (and missed a lot of music I wanted to see due to clashes), I still feel like I’m missing out. Our line-up today included artists from all over, dominated by UK and USA acts. But out of 26 performing acts during the Laneway 2026, only 6 of those were Australian. Not even half of the lineup came from the country we’re in! And I can’t help but feel like something is a bit astray when we had an opportunity to showcase our own formidable local talent, who can meet the likes of artists and bands like Chappel Roan, Wolf Alice and Pinkpantheress, or who could at least be on the way to getting there if they were able to get gigs like this.

On our headliner’s stage, we had no Australian acts, with only Blusher featuring on the second (smaller) main stage adjacent. We crammed our minimal Aussie representation into the first three hours of the festival, denying them a chance to really get seen or heard from the massive crowds that had assembled after that point.

Our Aussie music was excellent. I love Mid Drift and Blusher and was won over on getting a ticket following their incredible festival sets at Rolling Sets last year, keen to see them again. While our international headline acts were tempting, I wasn’t 100% convinced without seeing these Aussie acts I’ve had a chance to see developing locally in intimate spaces, like The Brightside in Brisbane. Their artistry, as well as that of acts like Djanaba, Shady Nasty, The Belair Lip Bombs, and Teen Jesus and the Jean Teasers, is admirable and meets the musical standards of our bigger acts dominating the main stage, with incredible storytelling in their songs, beautiful instrumentation and inspiring vocals.

I’ve thought about who was missing on Saturday and wondered where more of our own pop girlies could have been. Mallrat coming off from an incredible 2025 album, Peach PRC with her own headline shows approaching, The Veronicas with their legendary hits that never fail to go off live. G Flip never fails to rile up an audience and Troye Sivan’s set at House Party two years ago is worthy of a reprise. I thought the bubbly electro pop of Sycco and Ninajirachi, the storytelling of Montaigne and Aleksiah, and the country twang of artists like Thelma Plum, Josie, and Max Jackson would have fit snugly alongside acts like Role Model, Pinkpantheress, and Chappel Roan.

It’s not that I don’t want international acts to come by, and I certainly don’t claim to know enough about planning an event of this scale to dictate bookings which inform ticket sales and profit so drastically. But I started this blog hoping for more people to give our own music a chance to shine because it’s felt sidelined for so long, which reflects in our industry when bands come to an end and venues shut down more and more frequently, we fail to back our own enough to let them get the top spot above an international artist, and we end up with Australian festivals that have forgotten to promote Australian music.

THE FINALE

While I thoroughly enjoyed the cool girl rock n’ roll of Wet Leg and Wolf Alice and was really impressed with the production and vocals of Chappel Roan, the festival soon had to come to a close. Hindered by some logistical issues with crowd management, accessibility was missing and some strange decisions to close all but one exit immediately after the headline act were a little confusing. I’d love to see more of presence in the planning and delivery of the festival with the Dylan Alcott Foundation, or alternate disability and inclusion focused organisations, whose insight on and commitment to accessibility was very much needed.

Although I’m admittedly bitter about the lack of Australian presence and a nasty sunburn, I can’t say I didn’t enjoy Laneway 2026 on the Gold Coast. It was another example of how pivotal music is in uniting a crowd and bringing people together. I’ve seen videos of the masses at some of these gigs and was almost frightened by the intensity of them, but standing in the middle of the pit tonight was different. I loved the lighter sets where I had room to dance, mimicking the choreography of Blusher and boot scootin’ during Role Model. And the powerhouse performances later in the evening were well worth the cost of the ticket (and the pain of standing in the masses for an hour waiting for the light rail after).

I’m keen to see what 2027 will bring and hope Laneway takes on board the feedback from its patrons. People are eager to respectfully consult about their experience and contribute to some improvements to make their, and the next generation’s, festival even better. I’ve loved the focus on women artists, feeling empowered by the last couple of years in the line-up, and think Laneway is a great place to curate this type of industry focus, while being responsive to trends in the musical landscape. I’ll be making my line-up predictions and listening closely for any hints and clues. Until then, why not try checking out one of the following acts on tour to ease the intense wait:

Blusher – Soon joining Kesha as her support act for her SOLD OUT Australian tour, but you can always try for resale!

Mid Drift – Going from one festival to another by jumping on the Summer Salt lineup, headed by Ocean Alley this year.

The Belair Lip Bombs – Starting their Australia tour in February before heading overseas!

Teen Jesus and the Jean Teasers – Embarking on their Glory tour in Australia in May, with some epic new music to hear live!

MERCH

Thank you to my friends who waited in the merch line so I could go see Mid Drift and Blusher at the start of the day! They picked me up a white line-up shirt and a Pink Pony Club fan. Yee-haw!