Music

And so today wraps up another Labor Day weekend at Bumbershoot. Being able to go at all was actually a rather nice surprise. The company I work for didn’t close their stores today, and since I work the evening shift, I’d long since resolved myself to only being able to hit two days of Bumbershoot this year. However, much to my surprise, one of the other people at work offered to take my shift so that I’d be able to have today off. I certainly wasn’t going to say no to that!

Prairie is in the midst of moving to a new apartment, so she went back to Ellensburg this morning, leaving me to head back to the Seattle Center on my own. After she left, I wandered my way down to the festival, making it there just a little after 1pm — and was immediately faced with the news that the wristbands for the evening show were already gone. This was not an auspicious start to the day, as the biggest reason I’d wanted to go today was to see the Pixies. So, a little bummed, I figured I’d go ahead and make the best of the day as long as I was there, and see what the day brought my way.

Since I hadn’t planned on being able to go today I hadn’t really planned out which acts I might want to see, aside from the Pixies and Critters Buggin’ in the evening. Now that I couldn’t make it in to the Pixies show, I had a long, unplanned day ahead of me before Critters Buggin’ took the stage, so rather than bounce from show to show, I just started wandering around the grounds.

The first performance I hit was the MASS Ensemble. Where last year they had their Earth Harp strung up (way up) on the Space Needle, this time they had two smaller versions of their Earth Harp, and used a Drum Orb as the centerpiece of the show (unfortunately, MASS’s site is purely Flash, so I can’t link to the information pages on the instruments). I just made it for the end of the show, so missed the Drum Orb, so the few songs I did catch centered around the two smaller harps (smaller in this sense meaning strings measuring from six to twenty-five feet or so).

Once the Mass Ensemble wrapped up their show, I hunkered down at the International Fountain. Long-time readers of my ramblings will know that this is one of my favorite places to spend time at when at the Seattle Center, kicked back and watching kids play in the spray from the fountain. Not only is it fun to watch the mayhem, but I’m usually guaranteed at least one or two good shots a session — the only potential downside is that people may get a little tired of seeing even more pictures of kids in the fountain, but hey…as far as downsides go, that’s probably not too horrible (at least I hope not).

Not surprisingly, politics have been a strong undercurrent in Seattle lately, and Bumbershoot was no exception — at times, it seemed like you couldn’t go twenty feet without someone asking you if you were registered to vote (a good thing, I’d say, and I hope they got a good number of people signed up). Rather amusingly, though, both Prairie and I have noticed over the summer that it’s incredibly rare to see Republicans at all. All the voter registration drives, informational booths, petitions, and anything else you can come up with are run by various “lefty” parties, most often either Kerry/Edwards campaigners or Nader supporters (they just won’t go away…). I’m not quite sure why this is — though I’m certainly neither disappointed nor surprised that it’s the Democratic contingent busting their butts to get people involved — but when I actually saw some Republicans venture out of whatever dark musty hole they hide in to make a public appearance, I had to snap a picture to memorialize the occasion.

Of the many street performers scattered around the avenues of the Seattle Center, this girl was one of my favorites, simply because she’d managed to draw a large group of completely befuddled onlookers, none of whom (including me) had the faintest idea what she was doing. She had designs chalked out on the pathway before her with painted Barbie dolls and various other odd bits of stuff strewn on the ground, and when I eventually walked away, she’d gone from dropping marbles onto the ground from her mouth to bending down, getting on hands and knees, and kissing the inside of a miniature coffin. I haven’t got a clue if there was actually an “act” to her act or not, but even if it was nothing more than seeing how long she could keep a crowd, she certainly had her audience, even if they were fairly confused.

After some time randomly wandering around and snapping shots of fairgoers, I was passing through the area designated “Fashion Alley” when I stumbled into a fashion show highlighting the work of many of the local artists with booths in the area. Not being one to complain about attractive women strutting their stuff and showing off good clothing, I hunkered down in front and played fashion photographer for a few minutes.

Back at my previous employer’s print shop, one of the personal projects we’d done at one point was a promotional catalog for a local women’s clothing designer. The clothing was gorgeous, all hand-dyed silks, but as I couldn’t keep a copy of the catalog for myself and it didn’t have any contact information in it, I never knew who the designer was. Luckily enough, today’s fashion show included quite a few pieces that I recognized, and I now know that the clothes are by Wai-Ching — and not only was her work in the show, but she modeled one piece herself (and quite honestly, the woman is as gorgeous as her clothing designs are). It’s all a bit out of my price range (and I do have to admit that I just don’t think I have the body for the dresses she creates), but I can definitely recommend at least checking out her work.

Returning to my wanders, I soon came across this impromptu swing dance session. There were two street performers playing some swing-style jazz on upright bass and trumpet, and as far as I could tell, these two people were just random passers by who decided to take advantage of the music and put on a little show of their own. Fun to watch, and this photo is one instance where fumbling the settings on the camera resulted in a better shot than I think it would have been without the motion blur.

Round about this time I was getting a little hungry, so I grabbed some food from one of the many vendors and settled down to watch another of the Mass Ensemble’s performances (this time showing up early enough to catch some of the drumming — in this photo, there are ten smaller drums around one larger central drum, all of which the girl spins while her partner drums). While I was eating, two teens met up with another couple teens just a couple feet from me. One of the first two had a wristband for the evening’s show, but her friend didn’t, and they were getting a wristband for her friend from the other two, who were on their way out. I got their attention, asked if they would be willing to donate their remaining wristband to a worthy cause — and moments later, was properly banded and all set to be able to catch the Pixies’ show after all! I love it when a plan comes together….

Before heading into the arena, though, I was able to catch a good portion of Critters Buggin’. I first heard them on Anchorage’s college radio station, KRUA, first saw them at a New Years Eve show in Anchorage (1998? 1997? I’m not sure anymore…), and have been a fan ever since. Somewhere in between avant-garde Jazz and balls-to-the-wall rock, plus a heavy dose of whatever random influences come their way, Critters have been favorites of mine for quite a few years now, and they always put on one hell of a show. Tonight was as good as ever, if a little less theatrical than I’ve seen in the past — but after a while, I had to wander away and find my way into the arena.

After winding my way through an incredibly long line and making it into the arena, I found a clear spot on the grounds and plopped down to wait for the show to start. I’m always amazed at how many people they can pack into that arena — maybe it’s just the “small town” boy in me coming out, but seeing a few thousand people in one place is still a little overwhelming at times. Cool — but I’m still not entirely used to it. Once the show started, I got up to wander around a bit to see if I could get any decent pictures, but I’m afraid this was the best I could do. Not only was the arena absolutely packed, making it nearly impossible to work my way anywhere near the stage, but the Bumbershoot staff were actually doing their best to enforce the no-cameras rule inside the arena.

Still, pictures are really a secondary concern — I was happy just to actually have made it in to see the Pixies. While I certainly can’t claim to be the “biggest fan ever” (heck, I don’t even actually have any of their albums), I do know and enjoy a fair amount of their music. Surprisingly enough, they put more of their more well-known songs towards the beginning of the set, which was nice — they opened with Caribou, and both Monkey Gone to Heaven and Wave of Mutilation were fairly early on. A pleasant surprise, as I wouldn’t have expected some of those to show up until later on.

I was getting tired (and a little burnt out on being in the midst of so many people, too), though, so I ended up bailing out a little bit before the end of their set, so I wouldn’t have to fight my way through the mass exodus of people slowly working their way out of the arena. I worked my way out, tried a few night shots of the carnival rides (which turned out better than I expected — I’ve got to get myself a real tripod one of these days instead of trying to hand-hold long exposures), and made the walk home.

So that’s it — one more year of Bumbershoot done and over with.

Now, I head to bed, and let my legs finally get some rest.

Update: All of today’s photos have been added to the photo gallery — these start at the bottom of page 24.

“Obvious Child, The” by Simon, Paul from the album Rhythm of the Saints, The (1990, 4:09).