performances – Page 4

Bumbershoot '03: Fri, Aug 29

December 10, 2019August 29, 2003 by Michael Hanscom

Allrighty then — home from the first day of Bumbershoot 2003, pictures are downloaded to the ‘puter, and I’ve sorted through today’s set of 91 to find 10 to toss up here. Let day one begin…

I got to the Seattle Center around 12:30 or so, not long after everything got started, and spent the first couple hours just wandering around the grounds, figuring out this year’s layout. The International Fountain hadn’t been turned on full blast yet, and there were some seagulls hanging out on top of the globe drinking from the jets. I tried for a few shots of them, and I think this one with the Space Needle in the background was the best.

Le Petit Cirque is performing multiple times a day, with small fifteen minute shows throughout the day. This was the only one that I sat and watched, though I caught bits and pieces of other shows as I wandered around all day long. For this one, the pole in the center was constantly rotating around while the two performers worked their way up and down it. In this shot, the guy sticking out sideways was actually holding himself like that for one full revolution! Amazing to watch what these performers can do.

I think that this little wading pool has become one of my favorite places to kick back for a few minutes and cool off. Last year I didn’t come up this way, as I was only at Bumbershoot for one day, and the year before the pool was closed for renovations, so this was my first time actually seeing it in operation. It was quite a pleasant surprise to come across it, too — the water ranges from about six inches to maybe two feet deep, just right for wading around in (or swimming, if you’re young enough). I stopped by here a couple times during the day, both to wade around and to watch kids playing in the pool.

The first band I actually sat and watched some of today was Blues Orbiter. Not bad at all, good solid blues, but nothing really mindblowing, either. Made for a very pleasant time sitting in the grass and getting a little sun while I figured out what to do and where to go next, however. I ended up making a run through all the vendor booths and picking up a nice purple and black vest from one of the many imported goods stands. I’d been wanting a decent looking casual vest for a while, and this one is perfect — leaving it open leaves me cool and lets me get a little sun, but it’s heavy enough that later on in the night I buttoned it up and was quite comfortable.

Every year Bumbershoot has a giant puppet parade, and I’m always impressed with the imagination put into the creations. This dragon turned out to be quite friendly as I was taking the picture!

By this point it had gotten to about three in the afternoon, and I was getting fairly hungry. Rather than grabbing food at the festival, I caught the monorail into downtown Seattle and came home for a couple sandwiches, with a quick stop to pick up some shorts on the way. The day just kept getting warmer, and apparently the weather is supposed to hold throughout the weekend, so I wanted something a bit cooler than my standard black pants or jeans for my wandering. After eating, I caught the monorail back in, and took a quick peek at the odometer — the train I was on has clocked up 984,965.6 miles! As it’s roughly a one mile jaunt each way, that means that just one of those monorail trains has clocked up nearly 500,000 round trips. Blew my mind.

When I got back into the Seattle Center, I showed up just in time to catch Jambalassy featuring Alex Duncan. While I’m not normally a big reggae fan (I don’t dislike it, but it tends to be a bit too downtempo to really hold my interest for very long), I walked up to the show just in time to catch two really good dancy upbeat numbers that were an absolute blast. Really good rhythms, a strong four-piece horn section, and Alex does a really good job of getting the audience involved and having fun with the show. After those two numbers they moved into more standard downtempo songs, and I wandered off again. I’m so damn fickle sometimes. ;)

The International Fountain is one of my favorite places to kick back for a while on a sunny day. If you haven’t seen it before, it’s a huge area with a large dome in the center that has multiple outlets for jets of water that are constantly randomly changing how powerfully they send water out. Kids (of all ages) love to play in this, running in and out of the streams of water, dodging around them, and trying to run into the center and touch the dome itself without getting soaked (which they’re rarely, if ever, able to do). Being a sucker for watching kids play, this is perfect for me — and besides, a good breeze will often send some spray my way!

After watching kids soak themselves for a while, I headed off to find the Bagley-Wright theatre for the Pizzazz! talent competition. On my way there, I passed a group of five girls, all about 17 or so, standing in the center of one of the pathway intersections. One of them had a fresh henna “tattoo” on her lower back that said “KISS THIS” with an arrow pointing straight down, which gave me a laugh. They were all laughing and cheering one one girl in the center, who was wearing a shirt with “BIRTHDAY GIRL” hand lettered on it. As I came up to them, they were saying, “Seven! That’s seven — we need eight!” Then one of them saw me as I passed.

“Wanna be eight?”

“Eight what?”

“Kisses for the birthday girl!”

I laughed. “Oh, sure, why not?” I leaned in, gave the birthday girl a kiss on the cheek as her friends cheered, and then headed off again, hearing them continue their search — “That’s eight! Hey, wanna be nine?”

Eventually I found the theatre, and after waiting for about half an hour, they let us in. Apparently this is a fairly popular event, as they were able to almost completely fill the theater before the show started. The show itself was a blast — and while my friend Holly didn’t win, she did get some of the biggest laughs from the audience with a combination stand-up and burlesque routine extolling the virtues of having a fat ass. Besides, I think that anyone who comes on stage in lingerie and immediately addresses her audience as “twatwaffles and cockknockers” is bound to get a few laughs!

I have to say, though, that the winning act was well worth it. Opera Diva came out and sang an operatic piece with supertitles projected above her that were flat-out hilarious — and, of course, being a bear of very little brain, I can’t remember any of them well enough to get them written down here. Typical, eh? In any case, it was a great performance, and she definitely deserved her first place win. Apparently she’s one of the performers for local performance-art-circus-burlesque-dinner-theater Teatro Zinzanni, which I’d really like to check out one of these days.

The sun went down while I was inside watching the talent show, and at night, the entire Seattle Center area is absolutely gorgeous, especially during an event. My camera doesn’t do incredibly well with low-light shots, but I keep trying, and occasionally manage to get something that I think is presentable — such as this shot of the Space Needle behind the International Fountain. Someday I’ll be able to afford a better camera, but for now, this one serves me fairly well, and shots like this aren’t too bad.

My last band for the day was local funk/rock group Maktub. I’d read a lot of extremely good press about this group, but until now, hadn’t managed to catch any of their shows, so I was looking forward to seeing what all the fuss was about. Turns out that the good reviews were spot on — these guys were great. Very danceable funk/rock combination, incredible stage presence, and they were obviously having a blast and loving every moment of the show. The crowd was really good, too — I definitely got the impression that I was the only one there who hadn’t seen them before! Strongly considering grabbing one of their CDs before the weekend is over, but as I’d already done some shopping earlier, I didn’t want to blow too much money in one day.

Once Maktub finished up, I caught the monorail back to downtown and walked my way home — and that concludes day one of Bumbershoot 2003 for me. Three more days to go!

Starship and Kickshaw

December 10, 2019August 10, 2003 by Michael Hanscom

If you get a chance to see Starship perform, and it’s cheap, and you don’t have anything pressing going on, it’s not a bad show. The band, of course, is entirely different, and it’s just Mickey Thomas providing the voice that really lets them use the name, but they do a decent job. Not stellar — the drummer wasn’t always on, the harmonies often weren’t very harmonious, and the duets just aren’t the same without Grace Slick — but not horrid, either. Even when it’s not dead-on perfect, it’s still fun to be able to hear “We Built This City on Rock and Roll” live.

You know you’re in trouble when someone’s doing their nails during your set.

— Mickey Thomas, pointing out an audience member during Starship’s set

Now, if you get a chance to see Kickshaw perform, you should, with absolutely no qualifications whatsoever. This local acapella powerhouse is flat-out incredible on stage. The things they can do with their voices are just mindblowing, they’ve got great stage presence, and each time I’ve seen them, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it. Definitely recommended if you get the chance.

Pigface/My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult

December 10, 2019April 15, 2003 by Michael Hanscom

Just got back home from seeing Bile, Zeromancer, My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult and (last, but most definitely not least) Pigface at the Catwalk. Awesome show.

Work let me off early so I could go, so I got home about 6:30pm. Changed clothes and waited around the apartment for Candice to show up, then we walked down to the club and got there just a bit before Bile started. They weren’t bad, but were a little harder than I usually go for — wasn’t going to complain about seeing them, but not someone I’m likely to go searching out the CDs for, either. The high point of their show was a cover of the J. Geils Band’s ‘Love Stinks’, which worked surprisingly well as an industrial track.

Since Bile wasn’t really our thing, Candice and I hung out near the entrance, and toward the end of Bile’s set Chad and Don showed up. Not long after that, Kim and Kayo joined us right about as Zeromancer was starting. Zeromancer was more to my taste than Bile — I still might not go searching out their CDs, but if I happened to hear that they were playing in town and I had the money to go, I wouldn’t mind seeing them again. Again, the high point of their set was a cover tune, this time of Real Life’s ‘Send Me An Angel’.

We’d all stayed at our spot near the entrance during Zeromancer’s set where we could actually hear each other, as well as keep an eye on the door, and during the downtime between bands both Kate and Rick showed up. Just in time, too, as MLWtTKK hit the stage not long afterwards. Their set wasn’t quite as good as I had been hoping for — they were only a three-piece (vocalist, drums, and synth), and so nearly everything was sequenced, and they didn’t have the stage presence that I’ve seen from them in videos. That said, the updated arrangements to some of their classic material were really good, and the live drums made for a good show musically — it was just the stage show that wasn’t what I’d hoped for.

Kayo and I had gone down to the main floor for MLWtTKK, spending our time standing just on the edge of the pit, tossing people back in when they went flying out and hauling the occasional body up from the floor after a tumble (one of my favorite positions for a good show, actually). When we went back to the rest of the group during the downtime, it turned out that they’d been given a choice spot to actually watch the show, in a security booth just behind the sound booth. We all stood and peoplewatched during the downtime (and believe me, a goth/industrial show is quite the place for peoplewatching), then I headed back out to the floor when Pigface came on stage.

Pigface, quite simply, tore the place up. Incredible set — anywhere from five to twelve people on stage depending on the lineup for the song, and constant insanely high energy. I stayed right on the edge of the pit area again, getting pulled in and taking a tumble once (then getting hauled right back up to my feet). Most of the songs were from their newest album, “Easy Listening (for Difficult Fuckheads)“, but they threw in quite a few old favorites, including ‘Divebomber’ (from “Notes From Thee Underground“) and finishing off with ‘Suck’ (originally from “Gub“, though it’s appeared in many incarnations on many albums over the years).

‘Suck’ first came out on the Pigface album “Gub”, credited to Martin Atkins, William Rieflin, Paul Barker, and trent reznor. When trent included a cover of ‘Suck’ as a hidden track on his ‘Broken‘ album, he listed the credits as ‘trent reznor with Pigface’. This apparently led to something of a falling out between trent and Martin, and trent hasn’t been involved in a Pigface project since…. Interestingly enough (for me, at least), when they introduced ‘Suck’, Martin said that “this is a song by trent reznor….” In all honesty, I didn’t know that they were still ticked enough at that to be making snide remarks at the shows!

At one point, they were playing a song off of EL(fDF) (the exact one I’m not sure of, as I haven’t quite memorized that album yet) that has the refrain “Jacob is a liar.” However, in a crowded club, at high volume, and with a ton of distortion, since I didn’t know the lyrics off the top of my head, the only thing I could make them out saying was “stainless steel papaya!” I knew that that wasn’t what they were saying, but it kept me laughing throughout the song — I didn’t actually find out what the actual lyrics were until Kate told me after the show.

Anyway, incredible show. My ears aren’t likely to recover before, oh, Thursday at the earliest, but that’s all part of the fun, right (for what it’s worth, I did have earplugs that I wore for some of the show, so it’s not as bad as it could be)? I also picked up a MLWtTKK shirt and the only Pigface album I didn’t have yet (“The Best of Pigface: Preaching to the Perverted“), plus earlier in the night I was handed a CD from a band apparently from Vancouver, BC by the name of Charlie Drown (I haven’t listened to it yet, so I have no idea what it’s like but I was told, “Here — you’ll probably like this,” when it was handed to me…). All in all, quite the good night.

I’ll leave off with something that Martin Atkins (the main force behind Pigface) said at one point during the set…

Never understimate the effect that you, as one individual, can have in any situation if you put your mind to it!

Memo/Assemblage 23

December 10, 2019April 3, 2003 by Michael Hanscom

Got back a bit ago from seeing Memo and Assemblage 23 at The Vogue. Good show, but I’m exhausted. Going to be kind of an early bedtime for me tonight.

¡TchKunG! at the FUNC

December 10, 2019December 8, 2002 by Michael Hanscom

The ¡TchKunG! show last night was flat-out incredible! So glad I made it out there.

After relaxing for most of the day yesterday, I grabbed a bus and started heading out to find the FUNC. I wasn’t really too sure where I was going, but as the bus got closer, I saw a few other people that I thought looked like they might be heading to the show. Sure enough, I heard a couple of them talking about trying to figure out where the FUNC was, and we all ended up banding together. Luckily enough, one of the girls had been there before and knew where to go, so we all followed her for a couple blocks once we got off the bus. Sure enough, after rounding a corner, the sound of tribal drumming greeted us, and we were pretty sure that we’d found the place.

The FUNC reminded me a lot of some of the old warehouse parties I used to go to in Anchorage — it’s an old storage warehouse that’s been gutted and turned into a big empty performance space. Perfect for the kind of anarchistic revelry that ¡TchKung! generally creates. Outside the FUNC was a large draped area that seemed to be serving as something of a “chill room”, with blankets, pillows, and tribal/trance music playing on a stereo. I was never sure whether it was open to the general public or if it was for the performers, so I never went in to check, instead wandering around the lot outside the warehouse and peoplewatching. There were a lot of other people doing the same, talking with friends, and standing around a few burn barrels to keep warm until the show started.

The first half-hour or so of the night was just music over the speakers as everything got set up, then the actual show opened with a demonstration from Quilombo do Queimado Capoeira. Developed as a blend between martial arts and dance when the slaves in Brazil were not allowed to have their own martial art, Capoeira is one of the most amazing and beautiful dance/fighting styles I’ve ever seen. I’ve had something of an interest in it for a few years, so getting to see these people perform was a real treat. Even better, it turns out that while most of their classes locally are during evenings when I’m at work, they do have “all skill level” classes on Saturday afternoons, so I’m thinking about heading down there some weekend in the near future to check it out.

After the Capoeira demonstration, the Infernal Noise Brigade set up off to the side of the main stage. They were a bit too much pure noise for me at that point, so I spent most of their set bouncing back and forth between the bar area, where I grabbed a couple rum and cokes, and outside. There was a fair amount of spur-of-the-moment stuff going on outside, too — everything from firedancing to impromptu and improvised shadow plays using a floodlight aimed against the large white wall of a building next door.

Eventually I headed back into the FUNC and worked my way into the crowd gathering in front of the stage. A few people were wandering through the crowd, attempting to buy crude oil from anyone they spoke to, and passing out “money” in the form of copied dollar bills. Rather quickly after getting the bills, lighters would start to come out, and soon most of the crowd was holding up flaming $1, $5, $10, and $20 bills. Eventually we were told to stop, just in case the fire department came through and declared things a fire hazard, but every so often for the rest of the evening, you’d see the occasional bill go up somewhere in the audience.

After a few minutes of this, Uncle Sam came out on stage to welcome everyone to the show, and started pouring oil out over anyone within arms reach. I hadn’t seen the mudman that’s typical of ¡TchKunG! shows yet, but a ¡TchKung! show just isn’t a ¡TchKunG! show if you don’t get nice and filthy at some point in the evening! This is actually one of the parts of their shows that I’ve always enjoyed — it’s kind of hard to break into groups or think that anyone looks like they “don’t belong” when everyone’s slathered in mud, oil, or anything of the sort. It’s a little hard to describe, but it fits very well with the general air of the shows.

After Uncle Sam was done, ¡TchKunG! took the stage, and launched into the first half of their set. It’s so difficult to convey in words the energy that is present during one of their shows, but they’re by far one of my favorite bands to see live. The best word I can think of to describe any show by them is “tribal”, in the truest sense of the word — the crowd gets so wrapped up in things, that it becomes something more than a collection of individuals, and something closer to a “tribe”, I suppose…oh, whatever. You get the point. Or you don’t.

Midway through ¡TchKunG!’s set, they broke for a few minutes to bring out the Battle of the Dictators. In came George W. Bush, and then Saddam, held up on litters, with Bush brandishing boxing gloves, and Saddam holding a saber in one hand and an oil can in the other (which he used to pour more oil over the crowd as he passed by). Uncle Sam returned to the stage, and the lead singer for ¡TchKunG! donned an Osama bin Laden mask, and the two of them acted as commentators as Bush and Saddam proceeded to battle it out in the middle of the floor. The battle eventually got a bit derailed, though, when Bush and Saddam became so enamored over each others love of money, oil, and totalitarian control that they ended up molesting each other in the middle of the fighting ring, and the match was called to a halt for “unnecessary fornication!”

After the Battle of the Dictators fell apart, ¡TchKung! took the stage again to do the last half of their set. As they whipped the crowd back up into a frenzy, the mud finally came through, with both a Mudman and a Mudgirl working their way around, making sure that anyone who hadn’t gotten hit by the oil got a good amount of mud on them instead. Later on, the Mudgirl also came through with a gas can full of water, dousing people and giving them drinks out of the spout — a really nice touch, as few people really wanted to wander out to get a drink.

As the set started drawing to a close, another of the standards came out — their firebreather. He came out with two firebrands and cleared a good-sized area of space around him, then sent four or five absolutely huge fireballs towards the ceiling. Those are incredibly difficult to get a good picture of, but I’m rather pleased with the one I did get!

Eventually the set came to a close, and ¡TchKunG! left the stage…only to come back a few minutes later to do an encore set, something I’d never seen them do before! They did a great version of “Dijamy/Crashing the System” from their ‘Post World Handbook’ album, then left the stage again, closing out their part of the night, and after wandering around for a few more minutes, I took a cab home, showered to get the mud off, and fell into bed.

All in all, an awesome night. Hopefully it’s not too long before they resurface again!

More pictures of the night can be found ~~in this photoalbum~~, and I’ve also found one other small writeup of the night on patr0ck’s LiveJournal. If I find any more, I’ll post them later on.

Goodbye forever, once again

December 10, 2019November 7, 2002 by Michael Hanscom

Last Saturday, as part of the birthday celebration for Prairie, myself, Prairie, her sisters H and K, and H’s boyfriend P went to see local artist Jason Webley‘s final concert of the year. I first discovered Jason during Bumbershoot the first year I was here, and have been a fan ever since. I managed to talk Prairie into going to his last show with me, and she got everyone else to go along as well. Made me a bit nervous, as everyone was going just on my word, but I wasn’t too worried.

While I’d not yet been able to make it to any of Jason’s big shows, I’d been captivated by Karen Olsen’s writeup of his Halloween 2001 performance.

At last, the Last Song (still my absolute favorite of all Jasons songs) began to play, and the band members and other cronies brought the giant puppet to a standing position, its arms looming over Jasons head, while flanking him with two candelabras of small homemade candles and the cardboard signs. People linked arms and held up joined hands and a few cigarette lighters as the house lights went down, and Jason began to sing the song that has held many of us together during the recent times of crisis:

And we say that the world isnt dying, And we pray that the world isnt dying, And just maybe the world isnt dying Maybe shes heavy with child.

The chorus rang out with hundreds of voices, clapping hands and stomping feet, while noisemaker bottles were tossed out to us by Ishan who dragged a plastic sack of them forward at the last moment. Harmonies broke out all over, and were taken up by the band members as well. At the end came the chant of Igga-di igga-di igga-digga-dup which went on and on, growing into six- or eight-part harmonies as we began to follow Jason up the aisles and process out of the theater en masse, and it was the sweetest thing youd ever want to hear. I rushed as quickly as possible to grab my sweatshirt, trenchcoat, cloth bag and bodhrn (I can never seem to learn to travel light), and exit along with the rest of the crowd, fearing that I might miss something if I didnt hurry.

After reading that (and the rest of the review), I was determined not to miss this year’s final show, and the added benefit of being able to introduce some more people to Jason at the same time just made it all the better.

Suffice to say, the show was incredible. Jason’s bigger shows are generally somewhere between performance and performance art, and involve a lot of crowd participation, sometimes blurring the line between performer and audience. Absolutely incredible stuff, we all enjoyed the show, and it was most definitely well worth the time. As with last year, Karen has written a wonderful recap of the night’s events…

The last line is taken up by the crowd, with one harmony line over another over another, just as we did at the May Day concert, only with many more voices this time. We sing it on and on as if to make the moment stand still and last as long as possible, and that one line, We row the boat ashore, Hallelujah interlaces our hearts together like Celtic knotwork, with Jason and with each other. Jason stands back and listens, grinning rapturously at what he has helped to create and nurture. What music has joined together, let no one put asunder As the boat chorus goes on, Maureen and another woman, now both in white satin gowns, pilot small boats topped with candles, and feathers hanging over the side, through the crowd; people eventually figure out that they are to take the feathers joined with cards and connected with soft twine that looks and feels like fake hair. Finally, Last Song breaks in, with the crowd and band joining in on the verses as well as the chorus. Jason attacks the song with his entire being; by now, hes been singing his heart and soul out for at least two and a half hours. A box above the hanging knife begins to sprinkle feathers like snow on Jasons head as he sings, One day, the snow began to fall

People are singing so joyously, many arm in arm, that they are not prepared for what happens when the song finally ends. Jasons attendants remove his hat with a feather stuck in it, his kimono, shoes and socks, and finally the loose orange trousers. All he is wearing now is the burlap loincloth from May Day. He drinks a glass of red wine that has been handed him. The knife begins to be lowered toward him, and the two ghosts raise a white screen in front of him, showing Jason in silhouette with the knife slowly descending closer and closer. As the knife reaches his head, fake blood is splashed on the screen, and someone yells, NO! Jason’s silhouetted hand slaps against the blood-drenched sheet.

When the screen is removed, the nearly naked Jason stands alone, looking stricken and speechless, as if all the musical energy has gone out of him. Three women in white tie ropes about his chest and arms, connected to ropes anchored to the speakers on either side of the stage, as incidental music drones louder and louder from the band. Jason is raised into the air and hangs suspended, in a posture of crucifixion, several feet above the stage. One of the women loops another rope about his knees, which is connected somewhere near the back of the theater, and he is raised higher, in a horizontal prone position, and drawn off the stage and above the aisle, as several people, including Josh, carry a narrow, rectangular beam toward him. He is lowered onto the beam on his back, nearly falls off of it, and is secured to it with numerous ropes before being carried out of the theater and into the frigid night air. The music is crashing down on us in a pitiless monotone, in the mood of a death march. I grab everything I brought with me, not bothering to put on my jacket and sweatshirt, which I removed when it began to get crowded and hot in the theater. Thus I end up outside in just teeshirt and jeans, after the long push by the crowd to exit for the procession. Not everyone joins in. Not everyone has left alive. Once outside, I look north and can just see the main procession disappearing up University Way. Feeling exhilarated in the cold, fresh air, I run into the street with dozens of others who are trying to catch up, wondering what drivers and others in the vicinity must be thinking about this spectacle.

Incredible stuff. Even without the theatrics, the music itself is wonderful, amazing, stuff. You really should get your own copies. Trust me on this. You won’t regret it.

Bumbershoot ’02

December 10, 2019September 3, 2002 by Michael Hanscom

It’s taken me a couple days to get to this, and it’s not going to be nearly as long as last year’s opus — but I did get to spend last Saturday out at this year’s [Bumbershoot1. Unfortunately, I could only hit one day this year, so I decided to go Saturday, as it seemed to have the best lineup of artists I knew I wanted to see.

I started the day by walking down to the Seattle Center from my apartment. I’d originally planned on taking the monorail from Westlake Center, but the day was nice enough that I figured I’d just go ahead and walk it. When I got to the entrance, there was a street performer who had a boombox playing Jimi Hendrix tunes, and a (I believe) homemade Jimi marionette doing a really impressive show. I grabbed my ticket, and wandered in to explore what this year had to offer.

I was supposed to meet Chad at the Flag Pavillion at 2pm, so I started by heading that direction. Unfortunately, as it turns out, there is no Flag Pavillion anymore! A new pavillion has been built, that had been designated the “Tiki Terrace” and “Lagoon Lounge”. Made it fairly difficult to find Chad, so I just kept up my wandering, figuring we’d run into each other eventually. The new building’s pretty nice, though…not quite finished yet, but it’s close.

While I was down by the new pavillion, one of the frequent mini-parades through the grounds was getting started, led off by the Zambola drum and dance troupe. I have no idea if any of them were professionals or not — I kind of got the impression that they were all doing it just because they really enjoyed it — but it was a lot of fun (and not to shabby to look at, either!).

A lot of the fun of wandering the grounds is the multitudes of smaller acts, street performers that have come in and set up shop somewhere on the grounds. There were a couple guys with a juggling act that had just found an audience volunteer — a 9-year old girl who was having a blast being the center of the show for a few minutes. After dressing her up in a clip-on tie and bowler (so that she’d look “just like her dad”), they had her hold onto a couple posts, and set two spinning balls balancing on them…and she was a star!

In one of the less-packed areas of the grounds, I came across a really fascinating performer. He was standing on a box, playing a truly unusual instrument that had a very ethereal, resonating sound to it. Turns out that he’d created the instrument himself after seeing it in a dream, and taught himself how to play it, after welding it together from a lot of metal bars and a couple extra large steel salad bowls. Really interesting stuff (and I just found the artist’s website, including an article where about halfway through he discusses the creation of the Stamenphone).

Eventually I wandered over to the Rhythm Stage and sat down to watch Si*Sé, a ‘latin/electronica’ band that I ended up really liking (enough to pick up their CD later on in the night, even). While I was enjoying them, who should walk up, but Chad and not just Chad, but Aimee and Marty, too! Very cool — so now that we’d found each other, the four of us wandered around for the next few hours.

We wandered the grounds for a bit, then headed into the stadium to snag a place on the floor to see Ani DiFranco perform. Chad, Marty and I pretty much stayed about halfway back, while Aimee bounced around, doing her best to get a better view of Ani during the show. Ani did a pretty good job, though apparently she wasn’t too thrilled about being stuck in “that damn stadium”…still, the audience loved her, and she put on a good show.

After Ani we had a couple hours to kill before seeing Concrete Blonde (my primary reason for choosing Saturday over the rest of the weekend), so it was off to wandering again. We ran into Kate and a friend of hers for a few minutes at one point — it was great to see her again! We all talked for a few minutes, then she and her friend headed off to get something cool to drink. Chad, Marty and I spent a fair amount of the next hour people watching while Aimee dove into (seemingly) every booth we passed to see what they had available…certainly not a problem, though, we weren’t exactly in a hurry to get anywhere. Besides, standing in one place for a while makes it easy to run into friends — like Jory and Adri, who were down for the weekend. That was kind of funny — the last time I’d seen them was last Bumbershoot, when they were down for their honeymoon!

Aimee at one point had to run off to get money out of an ATM, and after waiting fo a while, Chad and I decided that we really didn’t want to miss the Concrete Blonde show, and left Marty to wait for Aimee while we headed into Key Arena. We found my friend Laura and her friend Renee in there, and so the four of us stuck together during the Concrete Blonde show — which was flat-out incredible. After having listened to Concrete Blonde for years, it’s so great to be able to see them live — especially since this was the second time in a year I’ve been able to do so! Both shows have been incredible, and I’m definitely looking forward to any more I can catch.

After Concrete Blonde, we all split up — Laura and Renee went off to find food, Chad headed home, and I headed into the Wherehouse booth to pick up Si*Sé’s CD. I also on a whim picked up a CD by Blackalicious, a hip-hop group that had played earlier that I hadn’t been able to see, but had heard a lot of good things about, so I figured it was worth a shot. Then I started working my way home…and managed to catch just the tail end of a performance by Jason Webley, one of my favorite local artists that I’ve found yet (though I’ve not been able to catch any of his shows). He’s got a new CD out, so I picked that up also, and then — finally — made it out the gates, and walked my skinny lil’ butt home.

All in all, a very good day. It’s a bummer that I wasn’t able to go for the full weekend again, as I did last year, but hey — there’s always next year, right?

Sunburnt, but it was worth it

December 10, 2019July 22, 2002 by Michael Hanscom

So yesterday I had to get up really early to get the U-Haul I’d rented to move all my equipment out to Casey’s wedding back to the shop by 9:30am. Setting the alarm for 8am was a little painful, but I managed to do it, and got the van back on time. And I even got it for a discount — whichever employee had rented me the van had screwed up when they put in the odomoter reading, so rather than charging me mileage for the 70 miles or so I actually drove, I just got charged for 10 miles total — just under $40!

Once that was done, I started taking the bus back home, but as the bus started going by the Seattle Center, I remembered that the Bite of Seattle food festival was going on. So, I hopped off the bus — and happened to get off at a stop right at Rick’s front door! So, I wandered up to his place, grabbed him, and we spent the rest of the day wandering around the Seattle Center, listening to good music and people watching.

Well, okay — girl watching. Summertime in Seattle is such a nice time for finding eye candy, and yesterday was gorgeous — cloudless with a projected high of 88 degrees. Lots of eye candy!

Anyway…(ahem). At one point in our wanderings, we started hearing a group performing “Papa Was A Rolling Stone”, which has always been one of my favorite songs. We headed over to see who was performing, and it turns out that it was an absoutely incredible acapella group called Kickshaw. These guys can make the most incredible sounds with their voices — one of the five of them can even do an astounding (and practically flawless) imitation of a DJ scratching on a turntable…just amazing to see. We ended up staying there and being blown away by the rest of their set, and I picked up a copy of Superstar, the one CD they’ve released so far. While it doesn’t have the energy that their live performance does, and they’ve added a member since it was recorded in 1999, it’s still not bad at all…and I’m looking forward to having another chance to see these guys.

It was a great day — I made it back home at about 10pm, quite happy — and quite sunburnt. Thank God for Aloe lotion…! It was well worth it, though.

Kidney Thieves/16 Volt/KMFDM/Pig

December 10, 2019June 3, 2002 by Michael Hanscom

Well, it took a few days for me to get off my lazy butt and actually put anything up on my page — but the concert I went to on Friday night kicked much ass!

Work let me leave early in order to catch the show, so I took the 6:20 bus back into Seattle from Redmond and got home about 7pm. Laura showed up here about the same time (as she’d picked up the tickets a few days before), and we wandered down to the Catwalk Club right about 8pm. The club is interesting, in a very grungy (as in dirty, not the music genre) sort of way — a sprawling, dimly-lit basement, more or less (there are QuickTime VR pictures of the club available, if you have QuickTime installed on your computer — good pictures, but the club didn’t look nearly that clean to me). Once there, we met up with Rick, Chad, James, Ron, Kim and Kayo.

The KidneyThieves were the first band. Rick turned me on to them back when we were in Anchorage, and had seen them before. They put on a short, but fairly good show — not the best live performance I’ve seen, but far from the worst — much of the problems were more due to sound difficulties (this was the first show of this tour) than to anything with the KT’s performance. Free, the lead singer, is absolutely drop dead gorgeous, which was definitely made watching the band that much more fun — Rick had told me she was, but there’s a definite difference between being told that, seeing pictures, and actually getting to see her in person! After their set the band sat at their merchandise booth and Rick introduced me to Free (he’d met her the last time he saw them) — I made a goob of myself, fairly predictably, but that’s okay. I’m used to it.

Next up was 16 Volt. Not much to say here, except that I’m glad I wasn’t there to see them — most of us spent their set sitting in the bar, talking and having a few drinks. I think Kayo (Kim’s husband) and one of his friends were the only ones from our little group to actually go out and watch them.

The headliner act, though, was well worth the night! Pig and KMFDM took the stage together, and (aside from the aforementioned sound quirks here and there) put on one hell of a show. While I’m normally quite content with staying towards the outskirts of things, this time I was in just the right mood to dive right into the middle of the crowd right in front of the stage! While I did my best to stay out of the pits that appeared, I got dragged/shoved in from time to time…but then, that’s part of the fun right? All in all, I got clocked upside the head a few times (once by an elbow, and once by a foot), got my toes landed on quite a few times, got a good few bruises on my sides from flying elbows — and had an absolute blast!

Once the show was gone, Chad, Laura and I went up to IHOP for breakfast — we waited around for everyone else for a bit, but never did find them (I’ve since found out that Rick went off with James and Ron, who didn’t want to wait for us to come out…Kim and Kayo just disappeared somewhere along the line). After breakfast, time for home and bed.

Great show, though — and they’ll be back in July, so if all goes well, I’ll be able to see them then, too!

Gotta love living somewhere that actually has good shows!

Still in Hollywood

December 10, 2019January 31, 2002 by Michael Hanscom

It’s Thursday morning, and I’m sitting here staring slightly bleary-eyed at the computer monitor here at work, trying to do two things: firstly, kick-start my brain into gear after being up fairly late last night; and secondly, see if there’s any way I can communicate how absolutely cool the Concrete Blonde concert I went to last night was. I’m probably not going to be able to do that good of a job, but…(shrug). Trust me. It was incredible.