Check out a slideshow of photo highlights from Bumbershoot 2011, including pics of Big Boi (above), Hall & Oates, and Broken Social Scene. And if you stopped by the Weekly booth and had your picture taken, go find yourself right over here.
Renee McMahon
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Dear Big Boi and Andre 3000,
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The two of you had such a good thing going. Can we please get another collaboration, and sooner rather than later?
Big Boi, your set at Bumbershoot yesterday was dope. Scratch that, it was super-dope. It was as dope as a Boeing 747 packed full of Pablo Escobar's finest. You rocked most of the OutKast hits, all the best tracks from your excellent solo record, and had a damn good time doing it. KeyArena may have only been half-full at the time, but not a single one of those people regretted leaving the pristine sunshine outdoors for the Dirty South revival inside.
But it could have been better.
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There was wiggle room aplenty, space at the front for all who wanted some, and if you found a line at Bumbershoot 2011, it was probably for what appeared to be the only coffee vendor on the festival grounds (Starbucks in the Center House). I never thought I'd find myself pining for crowds and confusion. But after a weekend spent wandering around hoping to find a hint of old Bumbershoot, it's clear that the amoeba of humanity that once moved in rhythm across the Seattle Center every Labor Day weekend that made the festival great was not to be found. Barring a home-run strategy, it's not going to return.
Renee McMahon Daryl Hall & John Oates (pictured) closed out Bumbershoot 2011 on Monday, Sept. 5.
Old Bumbershoot was a mess of the biggest names in rock and pop coupled with arts and culture spectacles big and small, spread across a couple dozen stages 74 acres that was held together by buskers, proud freaks, and sea of humanity that filled every pathway and strawberry sundae line in the Seattle Center. When you left a stage is when you were truly experiencing festival. It was the spontaneity and happy mistakes made possibly by the one-of-a-kind atmosphere that made Bumbershoot, to borrow the words of bandmates in local indie-pop outfit LAKE, "a historic festival." Bumbershoot -- for all the megastars it has hosted -- used to be the headliner. But the masses are gone, and, perhaps, the festival with it.
Bumbershoot can't become a smaller version of its former self. That's not possible considering the tens of thousands of moving pieces (determined attendees) it took to create it. It's got to become something new.
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The first two days of Bumbershoot are always charged with a Pokemon-like compulsion to try to catch everything, but by the final day of the fest, things feel more relaxed--you've come to accept that you won't see every thing, that the weekend is slowly drawing to a close, and that that's OK. The result, for me at least, was probably the most relaxed day of covering the festival, though it was not without its excitement.
Big Boi, shining.
Best of the day, and among the best sets of the weekend, was Big Boi's bass-heavy medley of Outkast songs and his own excellent solo material. You could feel the bass rumbling through the bleachers--it was probably the single most impressive audio feat I witnessed all weekend. And then the songs, damn! The absence of Andre 3000 and other guest rappers may be what necessitates doing these songs as a medley, but the rapid-fire result might be worth doing anyway just for the sheer ADHD pleasure of hearing "Ghettomusick" blended into "B.O.B." or the run of "Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik"-->"Playa's Ball"-->"Elevators"-->"We Will Rock You"-->"Shine Blockas." (Some ladies were brought on stage to dance for a couple songs but from where I was sitting they were all handily shown up by the dance moves of one extended family member of Fly Moon Royalty.)
More (including some final thoughts) after the jump...
More >>Monday I tried out a new festival-going strategy--I got in, saw three amazing sets, and peaced. It was short but effective, and was a great way to tackle the final day of a monster endeavor like Bumbershoot. Here are some words about what I saw.
Lemolo's haunting songs fit perfectly in the hushed, womb-like interior of the EMP's upper stage. A reverent crowd filled the venue to capacity before their set even began. It was my first time seeing the duo of Meagan Grandall and Kendra Cox, and though I've caught a bit of buzz about them, I want to know why I haven't heard more. Their songs, at times dreamy, others tense, reminded me of a subdued (but similarly nuanced) Wye Oak. More, please.
The real star of the fest (and the set people will be talking about the most in months to come) belonged to Charles Bradley, aka "The Screaming Eagle of Soul." After a few warm-up songs from his band, Bradley took the stage clad in head-to-toe purple, with an embroidered jacket and sequined vest, and promptly proceeded to blow the audience away with his charisma and pipes. Where did this guy come from, in all his hip-swiveling, mike-manhandling glory, and why haven't I heard of him before? The KEXP blog has the story:
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Despite sore muscles and a bit of fatigue, my Monday afternoon at Bumbershoot started out swimmingly thanks to some free street parking (thanks, Roy between 5th and Taylor!). The experience was also made pleasant by the decidedly less-dense crowd, which I thought might fill out as Hall & Oates' set drew closer, but never did. The smaller audience meant shorter lines for everything, quicker traveling from stage to stage, and a better vantage point once you got there.
Dave Lake Claire Evans of YACHT.
I started my day with a rocking set from Seattle's My Goodness, who made a fine racket for just two dudes. Guitarist Joel Schneider and drummer Ethan Jacobsen steal a page from the White Stripes playbook, both in instrumentation and garage-rock inspiration, but the duo do it well, and Jacobsen could play Meg White under the table any day.
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Quadron kicked off my third and final day of Bumbershoot with a sweet performance at the Fountain Lawn stage; vocalist Coco and producer Robin Hannibal were joined onstage by a drummer who kept time to the duo's harmonized hums and syncopated finger snaps. Coco is the star of the Quadron show--she has a beautifully velvety voice, she wore a shiny dress patterned with glinting rainbow confetti that won best outfit at Bumbershoot in my book, and she is absolutely charming--her genuine surprise when someone in the audience knew her name was touching. Set highlights were the sleek "Buster Keaton," the flouncing single "Pressure" ("This song was written about my sister," said Coco, and when the audience aww'ed, "No, it's not even that cute. It's actually kind of mean." Look up the lyrics and you'll see what she means), and best of all, their tender-but-sultry cover of Michael Jackson's "Baby Be Mine." Quadron's got some tightening of loose ends to tend to, but with some more polish I could easily see them playing for a mainstage-sized audience.
Robin Hannibal and Coco of Quadron** **Not their actual size.
New York artist Leslie Lyons' Expedition sounded like fun at Bumbershoot, until I actually saw it. Bumbergoers are asked to sit for short video portraits/testimonials/stories of about a minute in length. They take their cues from each prior subject, while also hewing to Lyons' chosen themes (birth, dreaming, kissing, friends, love, magic, and immortality). It's somehow derived from the old Surrealist game of "Exquisite Corpse," in which artists collaborate on a story (or painting or play or whatever), all within a predetermined template or pattern or grammatical sequence. Each participant gets to fill in the blanks, but the order of blanks has been set in advance. It's randomness within parameters, supposedly a window into the subconscious mind...
leslielyons.com
Maybe it was the overflow of "Who are you going to see?" questions that I fielded Sunday, but at some point, I decided I would approach this day without an agenda, and lean on the possibility of being pleasantly surprised.
No firearms
I didn't have to wait long, because I fell under the spell of L.A.'s Warpaint the minute I stepped onto the fountain lawn. As Julia noted, the all-girl quartet is badass, and, while there are definitely bands out there that rock harder, the dripping guitar notes and hypnotizing vocals (which came from both sides of the stage) drew me in closer. They're definitely a band with a "sound," like some of John Frusciante's echoey opiated ventures or locally, like more slowed-down, bass-ed up You.May.Die.In.The.Desert with pretty vocal tendrils interlaced. And, while I only caught the last few songs of their set, they earned a "Catch you next time" wave from me as they left the stage. I think they understood.
I had some time to kill before I caught . . . the Kills, so I had a beer and watched the Butthole Surfers, who I thought I'd like more than I did. They utilize a lot of the tactics I dig: loudness, abrasiveness; knobs; trippy vocal effects; visuals; but their set was just a bit too messy for me so I moved on.
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If Bumbershoot Saturday was pleasant and chill, my Bumbershoot Sunday was largely about disappointment--too much shitty sound, too many half-empty crowds (judging on T-shirts spotted, I understand Macklemore did not have that problem), and one terribly buzz-killing rave. There were some bright spots, though, so let's do those first.
Atari Late-Thirties Riot
Atari Teenage Riot were a fucking blast--frozen in amber from the mid-'90s, all shrill high-speed breakbeats, punchy distorted bass hits, looped guitar riffs, and much screaming and ranting. Alec Empire, looking like a miniature Trent Reznor, kept shouting at the crowd to make some fucking noise and "let's go!" (Once when he said "thank you," he shouted it with the same blown-out delivery.) They played a mix of new material and old burners like "Into the Death," "Atari Teenage Riot," and "Sick to Death." They lectured about the corporate war machine, class war, anarchy, and Barack Obama over sick peals of feedback. Empire did a lot of jumpkicks. Oh, and there was a shit ton of lasers. All in all, a deeply satisfying show for my inner angsty trenchoated teen.
Lusine at the Sky Church at the end of the night was exactly what I needed from Decibel at Bumbershoot: clear, quality sound and lights; some deeply smart dance grooves; and a friendly, animated crowd. Although local, Lusine plays out infrequently enough that you might forget to rank him among our city's finest techno producers--this would be a mistake, as his live shows have repeatedly demonstrated. When making an argument for Seattle's homegrown electronic scene, Lusine is some compelling evidence.
More after the jump . . .
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