Messed!Up
It’s so boring to talk about weather, but EVERYTHING in the last days (and basically the whole summer) have focused on the horrible weather. And on top of it all, goddamn Hans! A storm coming in from west, making the rain pour down for days and flooding sewage systems and roads. This meant that the topics in the messenger-groups the days before only focused on which shoes to wear (boots? Wellingtons? Crocs?), rather than which bands to see. And, what a disappointment when arriving in the Forrest, realizing it’s almost dry! And sun! WTF?! Something felt wrong. Very wrong.
This is my 13th time at Way Out West, only missing the first year and 2011 (when Prince performed), so it’s possible to see the evolution over the years. The organizers have always developed and tinkered with the concept and layout of the site, continuously making it better. The question is if we saw the largest evolution so far, as they had gotten permission to serve beer in the whole forest. In Sweden, it’s an administrative nightmare to get permissions for serving alcohol, so don’t even think about getting permission to serve alcohol everywhere, among minors. Small thing perhaps, but it really isn’t as it opens up the site and reduces bottlenecks, and gives more sense of freedom.
The festival then? Don’t know. Got drunk.
The lineup has moved more and more towards hip hop and r’n’b over the years, as well as Swedish acts. It’s necessary in order to attract a younger audience and not only the indie crowd, but probably also as it’s too expensive to get several large international headliners. They have also been really good at booking the old indie heroes throughout the years, from The Cure to PJ Harvey, but this is the first year we see a repeat indie heroes headliner (note the self – gotta trademark that!), with Blur. Does it mean anything? In the big scheme of things, probably not. But still… (what do you mean? – Editors note)
As always, festivals are great just to be able to see loads and loads of bands. Sarah Parkman was the first act, opening up the festival to a growing, and enthusiastic crowd. 070 Shake had a similarly, but waaaay younger, enthusiastic crowd. Enthusiastic is an understatement (many “enthusiastic” here – eds note), holy cow it was a party. I felt old, had to leave, but it was cool visuals with her alone on stage, with the DJ on the side.
For me, the first main thing was Australian King Gizzard & the Lizard Vizard. It was an interesting contrast, coming straight from 070 Shake to their weird, lovely show. They move between genres and are among the most productive bands out there, releasing like two albums per year. It makes them a bit difficult to totally get, as they change all the time, and the question is: where do I even start?
But the show was excellent, with a mixture of metal tunes and more psychedelic rock. The drummer is super skilled, but in performs in a really lowkey way, where the drummer The Killers tries hard to be seen, this dude just plays hard AF, but in the background. The crowd was surpisingly large, and it was interesting to see the kids coming from 070 passing through with big eyes, trying to understand what they were seeing.
A few of my favorite acts played at Höjden in recent years. A much smaller stage, like an amphitheater, with a totally different vibe as you get so close to the acts. Very difficult to actually see anything though, and trying to see The Last Dinner Party was a total failure, but it sounded great.
TV Girl is an act I’ve followed for a while, but kind of lost track of after 2011. When I realized that they were booked it was a pleasant surprise, but I was shocked when I realized how big they have become. On Spotify, his biggest hit has almost half a billion stream, apparently thanks to TikTok (it’s apparently a big thing you know!). It was pretty visible during those hits, as all the kids threw up their phones.
The crowd was huge, as all shows at Höjden, and the stage banter was equal amounts of irony and cockiness in an entertaining way. They were gonna play the deep cuts and the massive hits and we were welcome for the show and so on.
One of the main acts for me was the awesome Caroline Polachek. I saw her at Primavera in June and it was a great show. There she performed at one of the main stages, but at Way Out West she played at stage smaller tent stage, Linee. It was a smart move, as she okayed at the same time as Wizkid, and the tent was surprisingly empty. It filled up, but after having released one of the best records of the year (desire..) I expected a larger crowd. But it’s maybe symptomatic, people will choose hip hop. Period.
Most of the tracks came from the latest release, Desire, I want To Turn Into You, starting out with album opener Welcome to my island. It’s an impressive show, and her voice is so beautiful and she’s extremelty technically skilled. She moves back and forward over the stage, with such confidence and swagger. She plays her biggest hit, So Hot You’re Hurting My Feelings, as one of the final songs, ending the day in the forest in a great way.
Another favorite was American Caroline Rose, performing and one of the smaller stages at Stay Out West. I discovered her through the record Loner from 2018, with the great song Jeannie Becomes A Mom (apparently about her friend that got pregnant by mistake and ended up with twins). It’s nice synth pop, but latest release is a move away from that, into more guitars, and first half of the show had more the focus. It was still really good, and halfway through she said that she will play the hits as we made it through the sad songs. Jeannie sounded great, as did More Of The Same. Her guitarist also spoke Swedish. That´s pretty cool.
The best show of the day was yet still to come though. Danish Prisma. Damn, it was excellent! My friend dragged me there after having seen them at Roskilde, playing the Avalon stage to a huge crowd. Now they played the, probably, smallest stage of Stay Out West, to a rowdy crowd. It was a real privilege to seem to so up close, and we can expect them to become huge soon.
