Whilst the concept of festivals has always appealed to me, my actual experience of them had never lived up to the expectation. Drunken idiots falling onto and destroying tents at three in the morning, ridiculous queues for overpriced and barely edible food, sunburn, packs of feral teens ‘playing dress up as Kate Moss circa 2007’ and packs of feral adults more interested in seeing who could consume the most double pints than pay attention to the music. After a particularly disappointing Bingley Music Festival seven years ago I vowed that was my last ever festival.
Then at the start of the year a thought came in to my head. What if it was UK festivals (or rather UK audiences) that were the off putting factor? Suddenly the thought of attending a European festival became an enticing thought and one Excel spreadsheet later summarising 2024 European festivals based on acts performing, cost, location and whether I’d have to go camping and my summer holidays were booked around attending Way Out West festival in Gothenburg.
Set in the beautiful Slottskogen park the festival was a short walk from Gothenburg city centre; whilst various activities asides from music (including my favourite, collect as many freebies as possible) were scattered around site, with the sun shining gloriously simply grabbing a table by one of the picturesque lakes proved a satisfying way to kill time between acts.
First up for me was The Kills, performing in the intimate tent stage. As the roadies finished the set up for the festival opener something grabbed my attention about the stage set up – I can’t think of many live rock groups who don’t use live drums for their performances.
That’s not to say that duo Alisson Mosshart and Jamie Hince didn’t put in a full blooded performance, but not having a live drummer pounding away and giving their songs the intensity they deserved slightly took away from what they could have achieved. And as Jamie referenced, it was probably the earliest in the day that they had performed in a very long time.
Then it was over to the main stages for Big Thief. I say main stages as Way Out West took a unique approach to their site layout, with the main two stages facing each other across the same field; acts would perform on one stage and then five minutes after they’d finished the next act would start on the other stage. Whilst this meant there was minimal down time waiting for acts to set up, it did mean that there was often a rather chaotic charge at the end of sets to get from one stage to another, along with one other significant drawback we’ll get to in Day two’s review.
But anyway, back to Big Thief… Having seen them perform a warm up gig earlier in the week I’d been eagerly awaiting seeing them again, but in a brave move they chose to drop crowd pleasers like Masterpiece and Vampire Empire from their set and focussed on unreleased material for a festival crowd.
That’s not to say that their brand of grunge infused folk wasn’t impressive, but the slow burn nature of their output meant it failed to make a truly memorable festival performance, which wasn’t helped by the timidity of frontwoman Adrianne Lenke who barely looked at let alone addressed the audience throughout the performance.
Then it was straight down the other end of the main field for French electronic space pop (I swear I’m not inviting these genres) Air, performing their 1998 classic Moon Safari in full. Sadly though, their set felt too laid back for a mid afternoon main stage slot, with even the likes Sexy Boy and Kelly Watch the Stars failing to spark the crowd to life. And as with any full album play back to festival crowds, as the set progressed to the lesser known tracks at the back end of the recording so did the audience enthusiasm.
After a quick detour to grab some food it was time for PJ Harvey. Mixing highlights from her recent I Inside the Year of Dying album with cuts from throughout her thirty year career (albeit nothing from my favourite Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea) the depth of her music meant it isn’t typical sing-a-long festival fare, but the crowd remain captivated throughout.
Watching the set felt more than simply hearing the songs played live, but seeing them brought to life through Polly’s dramatic stage presence. Whether retreating to sit at the antique desk set up for her or throwing herself around to the punk strains of early single 50ft Queenie she remains captivating viewing throughout.
And then one final frantic charge between stages for the day to see Jack White, a late replacement to headline day one after Queens of the Stone Age had been forced to pull out after Josh Homme’s health issues. As with all performers of his vintage, Jack had a difficult balancing act to make – how much to rely on the crowd pleasers from his extensive back catalogue with The White Stripes and The Raconteurs and how much to focus on his solo work, with his recent No Name album barely weeks old at this point.
As it turns out he struck the perfect balance, bathed in blue light throughout the newer songs sounded powerful and could have been from any point in Jack’s career showcasing his impressive blues-rock guitar styling, but just incase the audience were losing attention the likes of Hotel Yorba or The Hardest Button to Button were thrown in to clear delight. But the best was saved for last with a rollicking run through forgotten classic Steady as She Goes before Gothenburg was shaken to its core by those seven iconic notes. Seven Nation Army may have had its impact reduced from becoming a staple of football and political chants, but in the hands of its creator it reclaimed its position as one of the great rock anthems of the 2000s.
With the music finished for the day I reflected that maybe I’d made a very good decision with my choice of festival. Day one of Way Out West 2024 had been a sun drenched success… What would day two have in store?
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Jack White’s performance of Seven Nation Army that I’ve raved about can be viewed on Youtube here, courtesy of HojasLive.
Alex Reviews Gigs 
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