It is always a tough choice between CykelVasan and the best festival in the country. This year I chose Way Out West. Overall it was worth the money but it had some disappointments. Also it seems like if I am to be a proper musiknörd I need to grow a beard.

Friday
Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros - Their hit Home was fantastic but the rest was what you can expect of a hippie band.
Christian Kjellvander - Great Pearl Jam voice but too slow for a festival.
Jenny Wilson - Less electronic since she brought along the Tensta Gospel Choir. But this was not so bad.
Janelle Monáe - The little girl with the big voice and a whole orchestra. Now we are getting somewhere. I am not much for soul/rnb normally but this put me in a better mood.
The Hives - Somehow I have never managed to see one of Sweden's best live bands live so I chose this over the clear indie choice of Explosions in the Sky. And Howling Pete and his attitude/stage talk was the clear winner. The day was getting better.
Fleet Foxes - And then the day was ruined again. Fan this was boring. Toakö and matkö instead during this hour of mellow mood music.
Robyn - Those in charge of the timetable should be shot because this took it up a notch again with a complete show of massive bass and video, so much that you wonder if it was all playback. But Robyn can sing. It seems the Swedes were saving this day.
Thåström - Videos of gears and machinery to emphasize just how tungt som fan this was. Brilliant.
Prince - By this point I was tired so I expected disappointment but instead got surprise. Prince is one of those artists I grew up with but never really had any opinion about...he was just there with hit after hit. So seeing him was a great memory test and the show itself was masterful. The two hours just disappeared and an otherwise tråkig festival day was saved at the last minute.

Saturday
I was tired so I hoped that the festival day would start better than Friday. It did.
Anna Järvinen - The Finn with the little voice gave a nice show in a style of music I generally like during Autumn/Winter. Good start.
Jayhawks - Fan. Country and gubbrock are two things I hate and this was both with an American accent. I wanted to rip my ears off.
Noah & the Whale - And then the festival was saved. Proper indie perfectly packaged for a festival with the right song order. Finally! GP gave this a 2 but they are idiots. This was the start of festival memories!
Säkert - Annika Norlin has always been a 'säkert kort' for her live voice and jokes between songs. And this was just a show of how much talent there is in värmlandska. The festival trajectory was going way up at this point.
Wiz Khalifa - Yo yo...I'm gonna f&uk your b#tch ho...this was silly. And the guy was a drug addiction poster. But my mood was still fine since I found some unusually yummy festival food.
Pulp - When they announced that Pulp would play I was decided. Britpop was when I was a teenager and while it was a reaction against shoegazer pop (my true love), Pulp somehow felt like more than Blur or Oasis. Jarvis Cocker and the rest are definitely getting old but the magic is there. So standing way closer than I normally stand I was swept away into some concert magic that I didn't think were possible in someone my age. And, yes, Common People was THAT good.
Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti - The name is as confused as them since they were playing every style at the same time in a single song. This could have worked but it didn't work at that point.
Tiesto - This was thumping away during Ariel. One DJ on a stage for over an hour served to turn all the kids into mad mental cases and I was ready to leave.
Kanye West - I stayed for the first two songs which were mostly stage show because he is not that strong a singer. But I could go to the ballet to see better dancing. The crowd was different and the place was full of police so I decided to leave. My second day was just fine so I could leave without feeling like I missed anything.