Relentless rain, cloying mud and uneven grounds – that certainly do not sound like it’s the most comfortable setting for an outdoor live music festival. But if Glastonbury can do it, what’s stopping Southeast Asia’s first St. Jerome’s Laneway Festival, held on the historic slopes of Singapore’s Fort Canning Park on January 29, 2011? The 11-hour indie music festival saw a 6000-strong crowd of music lovers singing and dancing to the beats of nine critically-acclaimed bands from the likes of Beach House, Foals, and The Temper Trap.

It is 11am in the U.K. and Yannis Philippakis has just gotten up. Starting his day with breakfast and a phone interview with MTV Asia, the frontman of Foals sounds upbeat and recharged with the current break that the band is currently on, having just completed a tour back home in the U.K. in November.

Clearly, 2010 has been a good year for Foals. Their second full length recording, Total Life Forever, charted at No. 8 in U.K. and was nominated for the Mercury Prize. Yannis describes 2010 as “amazing” for the band and mentions their five-and-a-half week tour of the U.S. as being a very memorable highlight in promoting and performing the album.

Indie kids, here’s a music festival that will truly make you go ga-ga for – Australia’s St. Jerome’s Laneway Festival is set to hit Singapore shores come January 29, 2011 at Fort Canning Park

(Photo by: Edward Dougherty/WireImage)

If you are an avid indie lover, you would have noticed the phenomenon of indie bands playing the role of the DJ for the after shows and whatnot. Many believe that Soulwax kickstarted the whole craze with their 2 Many DJs side project. Lovefoxx of CSS, Al Doyle of Hot Chip, Kele Okereke and Matt Tong of Bloc Party have all visited our shores at different times for their headlining DJ sets. Nick Zinner of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs has also made a name out of his skills on the decks. Billy Lunn of The Subways often tweets about his DJ-ing exploits.