Messed!Up
A nice addition to Way Out West is the stage Höjden. It was added in before the pandemic, but only for hosting talks and debates. The site itself is wonderful, in a hillier part of the forest, with the stage as an amphitheater, and in recent years they have held proper concerts up there.
The acts performing are generally a bit smaller than the ones on the Linné-stage, but it does mean that Höjden has replaced Linné as the stage where the most interesting acts perform. Most oldies (but goldies? Eds note – NO! DMs-response) remember early shows with Fleet Foxes or Bon Iver in the tent, and perhaps misses those experiences, but that´s evolution baby.
However, the feeling one gets is that several of the Höjden-artists would previously have played at Stay Out West. Take for example Nation of Language, Hurray for the Riff Raff or Glass Beams, which all would have suited perfectly at Pustervik. But this would explain why this year, there were rather few concerts that really stood out in the evening program throughout the city. The advantage is of course that more people can see them in the forest, rather than stressing out downtown, but I at least was less intrigued compared to previous years.
I also miss Bananpiren, which was more or less an additional festival site in the harbor at Hisingen, but that is probably the explanation, that building an additional festival site is too expensive. But given the new attendance record, it was probably economically profitable festivals in 2023 and 2024, meaning that it was a luxury that the organizers could probably afford.
Well, enough complaining. The Saturday was indeed a good day also, although not the strongest of the three. But it was, at least, ehum, ‘interesting’ to see André 3000 perform with his new project, focusing on flute music. The smart alecs out there would draw parallels to Ron Burgendy, but I am of course much more advanced than that. It was completely improvised, which of course is impressive, and brave. Definitely brave.
The Saturday also contained a few concerts that would have benefited from a stage switchero. Arooj Aftab could have changed from the second largest stage with Amanda Bergman in a completely over-crowded Linné-stage, and the same goes with Susanne SundfØr and swede Markus Krunegård that did draw one of the largest crowds I´ve seen in the Linné-stage. That´s always tricky, and there are of course logics in terms of contracts, creating the electric feeling of a large audience, and the risk of too few attending some of the shows if people wouldn’t pass them by on a larger stage. But being Saturday, and feeling old and tired, the Linné-stage was tough to muster for this dude with so many people around.
Much (well, some…) of the talk before the festival focused on whether Olof Dreijer would join Fever Ray on stage during their set. We know that both were at the premise, at the same time, and not far from each other. But no. That did not happen. I can report so much. But Fever Ray was cool. That’s for sure.
For me, much of the day focused on The National. Because I´m a 40 year old sis male with beard, having visited Way Out West every year since 2008 (except 2011…). That´s just how it is then.
That also means I have seen them four times, including this year, at this very festival (plus a few more times at other venues). That does actually say something in itself. At least that it´s difficult to find “new” headliners in the rock genre, or that it´s more of the same, but that´s a pretty simple critique. There are basically very few bands that can compete with a band like The National.
Already from the start, with the intro music in the form of Talking Heads´ Slippery People, you know you´re in for a treat. But also as always, it takes one or two songs before the sound gets any good. At all. It´s always a f-ing mess the first songs, until they turn some knobs (that´s what they do in that sound boot, right?) and it´s manageable.
Over the years, one has never been 100 % sure of which version of singer Matt Berninger we will get, but he had become more and more consistent in recent tours. He has opened up about his alcohol consumption and depression in interviews, but he says he´s in a better state, and one can feel that. After having seen a few shows where he necked more than one bottle of red wine on stage, and the madness that followed, I´m pretty happy to see he´s doing good.
But this does not stop him from still having, probably, the longest mic cord in rock (maybe Thomas Mars can compete nowadays though), and already early on, he heads out into the audience, singing from the little, little tree on the right side of the stage. Even those that have seen them a few times cannot stop from being charmed and carried away by the show and Berninger. Obviously, the rest of the band is among the tightest and most skilled around, but he is the X factor that elevates them into the stratosphere.
I can check of almost every song I want (Bloodbuzz Ohio, Conversation 16, Day I Die, and England), but the end with Fake Empire, Mr November (which he dedicated to Kamala Harris), Terrible Love, and About Today… What a quadruple threat (as it is definitely called). Few bands can match that. Holy moly. Holy shit.
