For another year, WayHome lives up to ambition
With many highlights, brand-new discoveries and acts that are ready for the big time, this music fest is one you should put in your schedule for next July
Well, that’s two times charmed.
The WayHome festival returned to the Burl’s Creek Event Grounds in Oro-Medonte north of Barrie over the weekend and, for the second year in a row, the upstart rock-’n’-roll camp-out went off without a discernible hitch.
By Sunday’s end, the official crowd count at the three-day event stood at around 40,000, with 35,000 of those concertgoers camping out on the property in blistering heat that eventually gave way to a spectacular thunderstorm late Sunday night, shortly after a rousing set by The Killers — who headlined the main stage on Day 3 after the reunited LCD Soundsystem on Friday and Montreal’s Arcade Fire on Saturday — shut the whole thing down.
There might have been a few grumbles about diffi- culties using WayHome’s “cashless” electronic payment system brought on by spotty phone service in the area — one could barely get a text message out, so signing up for the service online was not terribly easy — and the lineup could have used a little more diversity along the lines of Femi Kuti, FKA Twigs and Shad.
Otherwise, this was another near-flawless outing for an ambitious festival only in its second year. Kudos to WayHomefor coming up with programming that appealed to boys and girls in equal measure; it makes for a much more pleasant festival experience when there’s adequate estrogen to counterbalance any potential drunken, aggro-male pack behaviour.
It might be wise to set aside July 28 to 30 in your calendar for next year, because WayHome is only going to grow if it keeps up the good work.
Highlights Savages: While fireworks detonated over the main stage to mark an end to the Arcade Fire’s joyous Saturday night set, a few hundred brave souls huddled in the darkness by the tiny woodland WayAway stage waiting for a far less life-affirming kind of concert experience.
They were not disappointed. Magnetic singer Jehnny Beth and the other three women of London’s Savages meted out nearly an hour’s worth of theatrically brutalist artpunk punishment permanently set to “clenched” and crowned by a Suicide cover, the Savages version of a girl-group ballad and the bilious antianthem “F---ers.”
If they’d gone on at 1 as planned instead of switching places in the 11 p.m. slot with the excellent — in an entirely different way — Patrick Watson band, there might well have been rioting. Best of the fest. Chvrches: Endearingly shy and awkward on their first visits to North America in 2013, Glasgow synth-pop trio Chvrches is now an effervescent force to be reckoned with onstage.
The beats are bigger and harder, diminutive frontwoman Lauren Mayberry stalks the stage like a pro and indelible hits like “The Mother We Share” and the heart-stopping “Clearest Blue” take control like the anthems they are. Bahamas: Barrie-raised Afie Jurvanen and his always-ace Bahamas band are pretty much the perfect lazy-afternoon festival act, laid-back, infectiously groovy and drowning in easy-to-love tunes.
Jurvanen’s hunky charm is as potent as his tastefully deployed guitar chops, too; whenever it came time for a crowd, the voices heard were overwhelmingly female. Discoveries Mothers: Patient, spidery art-rock from Athens, Ga., presided over by endlessly dour singer/guitarist Kristine Leschper.
Hypnotic brooding broken by occasional moments of violence. Robert Delong: A one-man dancemusic party machine from Colorado who manages to sing some gloriously hooky pop songs whilst bouncing athletically around between keys, drum machines, samplers and percussion. Big, big fun. MO: There are a few would-be inheritors to Scando-pop princess Robyn’s crown floating around out there, but energetic Danish singer Karen Marie Orsted looks better placed than most.
Her onstage demeanour is as sunny as her endlessly danceable dub- and reggaeton-influenced bubble gum. Ready for the big rooms Arkells: If Hamilton’s Arkells were overwhelmed at the unexpectedly enormous crowd that turned out for their pre-Arcade Fire set on WayHome’s secondary stage on Saturday evening, they didn’t show it.
The very definition of crowd-pleasing.
On their way further up. A Tribe Called Red: The swaggering Ottawa dance-music trio had a monstrous crowd spilling out the WayBold hangar in all directions pretty much frothing at the mouth throughout its throbbing Saturdayafternoon set.
Throw down and everyone will indeed get down. Keys N Krates: Toronto DJ/drums/ keyboards trio Keys N Krates presided over a ripping dance party of its own during the wee hours of WayHome’s first night, spilling raveready hip-hop jams over an enthusiastic throng cavorting about the second-stage hillside well into the wee hours.
Bonus points for the happy-hardcore interludes, although we could have used more than a snippet of the megahit “Save Me.”