Messed!Up
Gothenburg’s Way Out West Festival opened the gates to the 18th edition in Slottsskogen – three days of music madness, overpriced beer, and bantering with people you meet once a year. For many, Way Out West is as much about meeting up as it is about the music. For someone growing up in Gothenburg, the festival is equal parts music and friends’ meetings. Friends arrive from different parts of Sweden and beyond, reconnecting over overpriced beers while catching up on life in general and age-related ailments in particular.
The first walk through the festival area, checking out the stages and catching those opening acts, brings the anticipation into focus, and we have a long list of bands to catch this year. Or how about Moby, The Cure, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, The Hives, and many, many more high-quality bands we’ve followed for years? We’re in for a treat!
After the first hour, we’ve finished watching Dove Ellis and Swedish semi-country/blues man David Ritschard, under the influence of two overpriced Norrlands Guld beers (8.5€ each!). Music-wise, not an epic start; beer-wise, the worst start ever. It’s going to be an expensive festival. The first bands are merely for getting into the festival’s vibe, but another slow indie singer-songwriter later (Kasino), and I wanted a festival with ten Two Door Cinema Club-type bands to fend off early sleepiness. My dream festival is an uptempo festival where singer-songwriters are banned – period. As if that wasn’t enough, I made the first major mistake and went to Lily Allen’s gig, an exact copy of her Roskilde Festival show a couple of weeks ago. Great show, but 200 m up the hill, at the Höjden stage, Jenny Beth apparently gave a killer performance. A lesson learned. Back at the Main Stage to watch Swedish superstar Zara Larsson, but staying far back to not engage with the 12-year-old girls in the front line. Sometimes, it’s good to be aware of your age and the artist’s target group. And to be fair, I’m impressed by Zara Larsson’s career, but generic radio pop music isn’t my thing. But none of this mattered because tonight was about my old electronic hero Moby.
Last time I was at The Fleece in Bristol in 1996 on his Animal Rights Tour – thirty years ago! With a five-piece band and two backing singers, Moby often lets them do the musical heavy lifting as he pinballs around the stage hammering away at his guitar, or working up the audience like an over-energized fitness instructor. Or on ‘Go’, as the ominous drones of Angelo Badalamenti’s sampled Twin Peaks score rings out, he furiously slaps bongos as cello and violin collide, alongside thunderous drums, to elevate the song into a giddy rush. That’s nothing short of epic! The list of hits on the setlist is long – ‘Bodyrock’, ‘We Are All Made Of Stars’, ‘Honey’, ‘Natural Blues, and the epic finale with ‘Feeling So Real’. To use terminology from the 90s: this was a rave night of epic proportions. The highlight was ‘Natural Blues’ with guest vocalist Jacob Lust, who did a impressing vocal effort.
Sure, there were still shows left, and we made it through a sleepy The XX show before leaving for the Stay Out West club night at Folkteatern to watch GB and Manchester’s up-and-coming guitar heroes, Freak Slug. Great wrapping up of the first day, although I was done after Moby.
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Photographers: Richard Bloom and Björn Vallin
