Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve heard the Laneway Festival 2010 lineup dropped a few days ago. It looks like this. I don’t have a lot to add except huh? This lineup seems extraordinarily short on essential viewing this time around.

There are two acts I’m keen about – the prospect of seeing Echo & The Bunnymen is more than exciting (but are they really a Laneway act? and let’s face it, they’re not the band they used to be), and I’m keen to see The Xx whose album has been getting a lot of spins here in the last few weeks. But apart from that, beyond some of the better Aussie acts which I can see anytime, there’s nothing in there that I’m eager to catch. It’s nice to know that Josh felt somewhat the same way.

This is kind of disappointing, as I’ve really been impressed by past lineups for the event. No festival has a perfect roster of bands, but Laneway always came as close as you could generally hope. It’d be nice if the second announcement righted this, but I guess tickets will disappear by the time that rolls around anyway.

The move of location (to the Sydney College of the Arts in Rozelle) is not particularly surprising, and probably necessary. It will be interesting to see how this development affects the atmosphere of the festival – if you’re after a taster Daniel Boud has photos of the new site which are worth a look.