Just yesterday, the Laneway Festival returned for its annual Brisbane leg at the Royal National Agricultural and Industrial Association of Queensland (RNA) Showgrounds. As if its built-in audience of 16-year-old festival virgins wasn’t enough, following its line-up announcement late last year, the one-day event was sure to be the EKKA for sad people and gay non-men.

Sets from girl in red, Julia Jacklin, Mallrat, HAIM, Joji, and Phoebe Bridgers were destined to imbue the atmosphere with vibes of pining, daddy issues, religious-trauma, lesbianism, and depression. Thankfully, if you weren’t getting all that from the music, inside sources report that similar feelings were stirred from the humid and soggy conditions inside those white tents.

Special mention must go to Bridgers, who had Brisbane pharbz quaking in their platform, cowboy, and/or doc marten boots at seemingly the biggest event since the coming of Christ. Her set had girls named Demi, Chelsea, Georgia, and (as of recently) Emily inconsolably sobbing; unrelenting chants of “PAUL OR BO?! PAUL OR BO?!” added a unique timbre to the performance; and anyone with a healthy relationship with an older man was tazed on-site. One attendee even told Obiter reporters that she’d “been granted ‘sentimental leave’ from the psych ward so [she] could see Phoebe Bridgers live”. Another, in what can only be described as a neurotic move, got on a plane straight after the festival to see her again in Sydney.

This evidence suggests that you didn’t need a sniffer dog to deduce that the drug-of-choice at 2023 Laneway was prescription escitalopram. Largely thanks to Bridgers’ presence, the Port-a-Loo Company covering the Festival had apparently been briefed on the potential for overdose-induced Lexaprolapses, but should things go truly awry, we at The Obiter suggest that the proclaimed ‘Bisexual Jesus' should lawyer-up.