This post is very long and largely for my benefit, to write down the weekend memories down while they’re fresh in my mind so I can look back on this weekend forever. None of the videos linked here are mine.
Highs:
The people – same as last year, everyone was having a great time, helping each other out, generally just being a kind, friendly crowd, which when there are 40, 000 people in relatively tight quarters, is far from a sure thing. Specifically, our camping partners were fantastic and the group adjacent to us helped make a great weekend better. We spent almost as much time on the campgrounds sipping on beer, listening to music and just hanging out. Also, massive shout out to the guy who brought me my flip flops when I got caught up in a moment and found myself in a pit. WayHome last year and this year, is a great reminder that people are generally good. Nearby campers, strangers beside you at a concert, all friendly and just like last year, I didn’t see a single fight or major incident.
Foals – The toughest conflict of the weekend for me was whether to see Foals or Chvrches, whose sets were parallel to each other. It weighed on me to the point that I actually had a dream a week or so before the festival that I saw Foals and had a great time. I chose to take that as a sign and they were my choice for Friday evening. The show more than exceeded my expectations, the crowd was absolutely fantastic, I was able to get near the front, and yes, this is where some moshing took place. I lost my sunglasses (cheapies, thankfully) and my flip flops (which were returned to me) and had an absolutely amazing time rocking out. It was chaotic but never remotely unsafe (again, can’t overstate how good the crowd was) and the show that I will come away from thinking about most often and likely telling everyone I see about just how great it was. These videos catch the
mood pretty well. There’s a reason these guys are headliners in the UK.
Wolf Parade – Like Foals, another really good rock band with some extended sing a longs and awesome jam sessions. They were actually the band I saw before Foals, coming on at 6:15 before Foals at 8:15. We were in the 2nd row for this one and when the camera pans right at the
:34 second mark in this video you can see my Jays hat (blue and white w/tad beak).
Arcade Fire – I’ve seen Arcade Fire twice before, so it wasn’t quite life changing moment for me that it was for people seeing them for the first time, but it was still pretty special. They smashed the time clock, letting everyone know it was going to be a long, full show. Their ending run of songs was very heavy on Funeral tracks, including Rebellion (Lies), Power Out,
Tunnels before finishing with Wake Up. Win Butler is a great showman, Regine’s voice was better than I remember and
the setlist in general was flawless. This was one of only a handful of shows they are playing this year and was pretty obviously the band most were there to see and the biggest crowd of the weekend. And
the fireworks display at the end of their set was ridiculous.
The Killers- All 3 headliners this year were so good. Big fun arena rock singalong songs again and again and again. The Killers played the Sunday night headline spot and as a result had a bit smaller crowd than Arcade Fire as some people chose to head back to the real world Sunday night (admittedly, we did this last year when Sam Smith closed out Sunday). We took the opportunity to get as close as possible, ending up in the 2nd GA row (about a half dozen rows back including VIP). This was my 4th time seeing The Killers, in addition to seeing Brandon Flowers solo last year. Both last and this year I was struck by how much he was
enjoying himself on stage. Again, the setlist here was very strong, starting the night with Mr. Brightside, finishing with When You Were Young and mixing in covers of Joy Division and Elvis Presley, and even playing a couple songs I haven’t seen live before (This is Your Life, Glamourous Indie Rock & Roll). All in all a prefect ending to a great weekend – our friends who stayed for the concert but weren’t huge Killers fans also came away impressed by just how many
hits they have to draw from.
Tell your friends
LCD Soundsystem – Without repeating myself and dragging this post out all day, again, they played all the hits, had some amazing, euphoric singalongs,
huge moments, and closed with their best “
All My Friends”. This one had the added bonus of being a massive
dance party as well.
Porta Potties – Yes, this is a high point. Maybe it was my good fortune but I arrived shortly after they were cleaned on many occasions, they were plentiful with no lines and in shockingly good condition.
Festival Grounds- It really is a beautiful, well laid out space. The one nitpick would be to have more shade but that’s tough to do when you need open space for so many people. The stages are so easy to move between and no sound bleed at all between stages when multiple bands are performing at the same time.
M83 – Playing Saturday night on the main stage, the new songs were very good live, with Mai Lan travelling with the band to play “Bibi the Dog” and “
Go!”. Everyone uses the word “epic” to describe M83 and when they play songs like Steve McQueen and
Midnight City, you can’t argue. They need to play more Saturdays = Youth, in my opinion.
Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats- They played on Friday at 4:30, perfect time for some good beer drinking music. Opening with my favourite “I Need Never Get Old” and finishing with their biggest hit “
S.O.B.” transitioned into a cover of “The Shape I’m In” (The Band cover), it was the first show of the weekend and a great way to start.
The Arcs- I missed the first couple songs from The Arcs but made it in time to see my favourites, “The Arc” and “
Outta My Mind”. Lingered more towards the back for this lazy Sunday afternoon show, but they are a very tight band with a sound pretty similar to the lead singer’s primary band The Black Keys.
Third Eye Blind- Newly relevant after their Republican party trolling, they were far from the best band musically this weekend but you better believe everyone there belted out every word to “Never Let You Go”, “Graduate”, “Deep Inside of You”, “How’s It Gonna Be”, “Jumper” and “Semi-Charmed Life”
Arkells – Thanks to their love of Peterborough, I’ve seen Arkells more than any other band. Their set here was something different though. I’m used to seeing them in smaller venues like The Venue or The Red Dog. Here they were one of the biggest draws of the weekend, they played the “second” main stage and were likely the largest crowd I saw there all weekend – impressive considering the number of people who had already moved over the get a good spot for Arcade Fire at that point. Their set included never before played song “Drake’s Dad” plus a couple others from their upcoming album, plus the required hits and equally required at an Arkells show cover – including parts of “My Girl”, “Higher and Higher” The Jackson 5 and a full cover of The Hip’s “Music At Work”. With the new songs, covers and shortened set, it was a little less “hit” heavy than most of their shows but more than made up for it by bringing a full horn section to truly emphasize their Motown influence. Plus, the
Leather Jacket singalong was one of the best of the weekend and makes me wonder if they’re far from headlining major Canadian festivals.
Beirut – Horn heavy, lots of great harmonies, very well suited for Sunday afternoon in the blistering heat. The next best thing to being on the beach in Mexico listening to a Mariachi band.
Lucius – I had no intention of seeing them and haven’t listened to them much, but sitting on the grass on the hill with everyone who’d been camping together all weekend, they were a fun way to spend Sunday afternoon.
Half Moon Run- They are very good live, bringing an even higher level of energy than on their albums. I actually saw these guys In 2013, when they opened for July Talk (who themselves were just breaking out) and Billy Talent for a $10 Lac-Megantic charity show at The Venue. With Half Moon Run also blowing up now, it’s fun to think about what it would cost to see that trio of bands these days.
Stars- Also played tribute to The Hip, with a “Doing It Fir Gord” T-Shirt. This was a really good show, heavier on their
synthy material, which I love – I only wish WayHome had scheduled them differently, as this would have been a fantastic late night show and suffered a bit, in my opinion, for being at 3:30 in the afternoon on the last day of the festival. Interestingly, when I saw them at Riot Fest in 2014 they played an afternoon set as well, so the late night Stars party still has to wait.
Mac DeMarco – did play late night on Friday night and was excellent. Hard to describe
his sound (slacker rock?), but very good.
Water- was plentiful enough on day one for me, and they added more stations over the course of the weekend – no complaints from me here.
Preparation – From year 1 to this year, a lot was learned. Having our own eggs and burgers, plus a shade tent on our camp site saved a lot of money and likely heat stroke.
Dirty Hippiness- I pretty much completely gave up on shaving/changing/staying remotely clean early on. There was so much dust (because it hasn’t rained all summer), it seemed like a lost cause.
JP’s Barbecue 3 Meat Poutine- About $5 more than it should have been, but wow, it was tasty.
Disappointments/Nit-picks
There’s not a lot of negative to come out of a weekend like WayHome, but in the interest in fairness, here’s what I would like to see improved for future years:
Food Selection/Lineups- It seems like compared to last year, there was a lot less selection in terms of food. There was tons of poutine, lots of pulled pork but not too much else. The lines at peak time were awful, almost an hour long. Long lines meant going wherever was the shortest line – inevitably a poutine place.
Last Minute Policy Changes – Set the limits for what people can bring into the campgrounds at whatever you want but don’t change it the Tuesday before the event starts – I’m sure we weren’t the only ones who did our preperatory shopping on the weekend before, only for what we bought to no longer be allowed in.
“24-Hour” Area – For starters, on Sunday night Pizza Pizza was already closed, leaving only the burger/fries joint open. I’m sure the food was fine, but it takes a lot longer to serve it that it does to whip out premade pizza fast and furious. When Pizza Pizza was open here earlier in the weekend, lines and services were fine, but like in the grounds, it would be nice to have a different option than Pizza or fries.
Beer Selection- I’m a beer geek, so it was always going to be tough to satisfy me here, but having only 3 options in todays world of so many well made varieties of beer is crazy. It’s obviously because Molson throws a ton of money at them (and who could deny those Canadian cans are beautiful), but come on Molson, Coors Light and Creemore Original? Mix in a pilsner. Or a wheat beer. Or something from one of the 25 brewers in the greater Toronto/Barrie area. Thankfully we brought lots of our own to sample on the campsite.
My voice – It was gone by Saturday. It’s now Wednesday afternoon, it still hasn’t completely come back.
FIDLAR – Okay, it’s not fair to them, I get it, people get sick and when you rock as hard as these guys, a throat infection isn’t something to mess with. That said, I was really looking forward to seeing them, so it was still a bummer that they had to cancel their show.
The Struts- Their mix of Queen/Rolling Stones sounds seemed like it would play well at a festival environment, but after heading into to see them Friday, they just didn’t sound good. I read elsewhere it was a mixing issue that was corrected once they got a few songs in, but I had already moved on by that point – on the plus side, this made it easy to get a very good spot for Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats.
Friday Late Night - This one is all on me, but some combination of the long day, the heat and the beer had me ready to pack it in at 1 AM. That of course sounds perfectly rational, but Matt & Kim played
at 1 AM and would have been perfectly suited to that time – I would have liked to seen it.
Sunday Burritos- Both this year and last year when I went for a burrito on Sunday, they were sold out of almost everything but a cheese/ground beef/bean burrito. Veggies in general were hard to come by in the festival grounds. On the plus side, a post-festival weigh in shows I gained almost no weight this weekend.
Prices - Beer and food were both expensive ($10.50/beer, $12 burrito), the cashless system costs $5 to get your balance back, showers were $9.50 – all adds up over the weekend.
Merchandise – I was able to get a nice Wayhome shirt on Saturday, I heard they sold out later on and if they ever had posters, they were gone before I could get one. I went back on Sunday to get a Foals shirt I’d seen earlier but they were gone as well. Beirut shirts gone as well. In general it seemed lacking, at least for what I was interested in.