Music

Just hopped on the #2, heading back out to the Seattle Center. According to my schedule, the DJ (group?) in the Electrodeck before the Black Crows was just called BPM. Well, whatever, it was fun to dance to.

There’s a few acts I’ve got marked out that I’d like to catch, but as is inevitable at a festival this size, some of the performances overlap. I’ll see who I end up catching eventually.

Anyway, possibilities I’ve got marked out for the day are David Lee Roth tonight in the stadium, Maria Muldaur on the blues stage, the Reverend Horton Heat at Key Arena, 5 Fingers of Funk and Critters Buggin’ at the rhythm stage, the Red Elvises (again), and Joe Matt & Sol Calderone and DJ Logic in the Electrodeck. The earlier shows don’t overlap too much, but the evening’s going to be kind of tricky. I’ll just have to see how it goes.

Writing on the bus is getting to be a pain in the butt, though, so it’s time to stop.

I’ve got some time to kill before the first acts I’ve got marked, so I’m sitting in the bowl of the fountain again. There’s a giant puppet parade that goes through a couple times a day that I grabbed a few pictures of. And I do mean giant puppets — the dragon takes five operators from the looks of it. The smaller puppets only take one person — but they’re about 15 feet tall.

This looks like it’s going to be an absolutely gorgeous day. It’s about 12:30pm now, and we’ve got nearly cloudless skies with the sun beating down. Feels great, and it’s making for some cool rainbow effects in the fountain.

Sitting on the lawn at Maria Muldaur now. Not much better for a sunny Sunday morning than the blues! Where I’m sitting, I can get an occasional glimpse of her between the people standing up in front of me — I’ll stand up and try to get a pic or two in a minute.

On the way from the fountain, I stopped off to watch a kid doing a juggling act. Had a very impressive finale that I got a picture of: balancing a spinning plate on a stick in his mouth and juggling three machetes while standing on a contraption of boards and blocks balanced on a rolling tube. Crazy, but he pulled it off — a far, far braver man than I.

Back at the fountain again. Hit the Electrodeck after Maria Muldaur and caught the end of Joe Matt & Sol Calderone and the beginning of DJ Logic. Stopping off here on the way over to check out 5 Fingers of Funk. Took a panoramic series of the bowl of the fountain — with the weather so nice, there’s a lot more people both at the festival in general, and playing in the water here. Gave me a chance to get a shot of it during a busier time than my first set of shots. Now, time to wander off again.

Nice — 5 Fingers of Funk put on a nice, sweet set. Once they were done I jumped offsite to get something to eat, and have been hanging out at the fountain for a bit now. I’m not hot enough to take a run through, but a breeze has come up that keeps blowing mist across everyone — a nice complement to the strength of the setting sun. I figure there’s only an hour or so of real daylight left, so I’m enjoying it while I can.

I’ve got a little over an hour before the next show I want to hit, so will probably kill that either sitting here or wandering around and peoplewatching.

Okay. Wandered around for a while, basically just people watching and following the flow of the crowd. Found a good spot for the Critters Buggin’ show, I think — as long as I don’t get too much of a contact high from the clouds of pot smoke that keep drifting by me. Can’t really say I’m surprised — most of the festival is kept pretty free of that, but the area around the rhythm stage has been given an “island” atmosphere in decor. Between that and the fact that the majority of the acts on this stage focus on funk, reggae, and similar stuff — it’s a haven for much of the crowd (hippie, rasta, etc.) that’s more likely to be getting a nice pot buzz when they can. Not a big deal, really — just hope I don’t get hit for a random drug test at work anytime soon. I don’t know if they do that beyond the initial screening or not — and a contact high probably wouldn’t be enough to show, anyway — but hey.

Caught another of the random street performers on the way over. He’d laid three kids down side by side on the ground, and proceeded to make three attempts at doing a skateboard jump with a 360 degree twist in the air over them. While he made it over the kids each time, he never quite managed to land without falling down — but the last time he at least kept his feet on the board and got back up, which was good enough for the crowd (and probably for the parents of the kids, too). I did manage to get some good shots of him in the air over the kids, too.

Critters Buggin’ got off to a late start. They were supposed to start at 7pm, but didn’t really get going until close to 8pm. Apparently there was some sort of problem with the sound system — which, unfortunately, continued during their show. Every so often all the speakers would go dead for a few moments, then kick in again. Was kind of a bummer for the crowd, but the band either didn’t notice — or (my guess) didn’t care, as they just kept right on playing and let the sound guys fight with it.

Other than that, it was really good — and, typically for Critters Buggin’, bizarre. A couple of brothers from Morocco opened the show with a set of about five traditional Moroccon pieces. It was good, but after an hours wait to get started, one guy on a Moroccan pipe and his brother on a drum wasn’t quite enough for some of the crowd, who took off. Fine with me — it let me work my way forward through the crowd.

When Critters got on, it was great. They’re a pretty powerful band anyway — two drummers, a bass player, and Skerrik (sax, electric sax, keyboards, lots of distortion, and a lot of noise). Then they bring on a host of additional people to keep the stage interesting.

First off, a little girl (maybe Skerrik’s daughter?) ran onstage and helped Skerrik with the keyboard for a bit, until her mom (I’m guessing) came to take her back off to the side of the stage.

Next the Cheeze Family came on — four drag queens with grossly exaggerated anatomies built into their outfits. After they left, Skerrik brought out the “Farther” (kind of like a Catholic Father, just different) to cleanse and bless the audience with what appeared to be a pair of rubber handcuffs.

For a while after that, there was some sort of mimed business between Pan and a woman in a Hironymous Bosch-style mask and a wedding dress, both of which she eventually stripped off (she was wearing a white bodysuit under the dress).

I’ll have to finish this on the bus — the police are kicking us out.

Back at home now. Next to join Critters was a figure wearing a red cape and a Charlie Brown mask, until he ripped off the mask to reveal — well, another mask, this one somewhat satanic. I’m not entirely sure who he was supposed to be, except that he was trying to shut Critters Buggin’ down. Of course, this didn’t work, as he was shouted offstage by the audience chanting, “No more smooth jazz!” while Skerrik assaulted him with blasts of noise from his sax. All very entertaining.

Not too long after that, I decided to head to the stadium. Because of the late start to the Critters Buggin’ show, I didn’t get to see the Reverend Horton Heat, which was a bummer, but I did want to check out the last part of the big show for the night — Dimond Dave himself, David Lee Roth.

Rather than staying twards the back as I had for the Crows, I decided to see if I could find a way toward the front — the better to immerse myself in a sea of true buttrockers, and the best Dimond Dave experience possible. I cut off to the right hand side of the stadium and worked my way up along the side, then when I got close to the front I started working my way in. I ended up a bit off to the side of the stage, but only about three “rows” back (though “rows” is a fairly loose term at an arena-rock show such as this). In any case, I had a pretty good view, and was buried far enough in the crowd to go ahead and break the no cameras rule and snap a couple shots off. I figured that even if security noticed it would be hard to track me down — and even if they did, they can’t exactly confiscate the film from a digital camera. No need to worry, though.

Anyway, whether or not you’re a fan, I gotta say that Dave is one hell of a showman. Lime green suit, white suspenders, no shirt, long blonde hair flying all over the place, and all the screams, jumps, and high kicks you’d ever want. Was actually a really good show, and he finished it off with a couple old Van Halen tunes that even I knew — the last song of the actual set was “Ain’t Talkin ‘Bout Love,” and his encore song was “Jump!” I tell you, the opening synth cords of “Jump!” brought me right back to high school. I’m not sure if that’s a good or bad thing, but it was a hell of a lot of fun.

After Dave was done, I started working my way to the exit to catch the bus back home. As I passed the fountain there was still a big drum circle going on down in the bowl, so I stopped off there to sit, listen to the drums, and write things down — that’s where I was when I wrote that the police were kicking us out.

There had been a drum circle going on at the fountain all day long. It had started with just five guys and had been picking up more and more drummers as they day progressed. By the time I sat and was writing until the police came by and started herding people out, there were probably at least a good hundred people down in the bowl — a good half of them drumming, and the other half dancing or just hanging out.

After being told it was time to go home, I wandered out to the bus stop. Ended up getting into a conversation with a guy named Paul, who was there from one of the smaller papers in the area (I’m afraid I forget which one), and was covering some of the shows. We chatted during the bus ride, mostly about various kinds of music, pros and cons of the festival, and such.

As I got off the bus, a girl got off who I see most mornings on the same bus on the way to work. We joked that things were backwards, as we were getting off the bus at night, rather than getting on it in the morning. Turns out she lives in the same apartment building I do, up in 405. One of these days I should probably figure out what her name is.

So that’s it for Sunday. The batteries in my camera finally died during David Lee Roth (not bad, considering I bought the camera in late May), so I’m not sure if I’ll be taking any pictures tomorrow. I’ll look into how much batteries cost tomorrow morning, hopefully they won’t be too expensive — but since I need Lithium AA’s instead of standard Alkalines, I’m not sure.