Enthusiastically Ambiverted Hopepunk
I’ve finished uploading older photographs into my Flickr account for now. I’ve been concentrating on bigger “event” things to put into sets, rather than everyday stuff.
New sets since the previous update: The Jensonia Hotel fire, Kevin and Emily’s wedding, Bumbershoot ’03, Pride Day ’03, Bumbershoot ’02, Bumbershoot ’01, and Pride Day ’01.
And right at the end of the Pride Day ’01 set, just for Kirsten:
A re-post from last year — some rambling from me on how best to approach this upcoming weekend’s Bumbershoot festival (which, unfortunately, I’ll only be hitting two days of this year, due to my workplace not closing down for Labor Day).
Some general tips and approaches I use for getting through the weekend:
I carry as little as possible, so I don’t wear myself down with a big bag or anything. Camera, wallet, a book to scribble down what I’m doing and seeing so the pictures make sense, and that’s about it.
The Bumbershoot guides published in the Seattle Weekly and the Stranger are godsends. Before each day starts, I browse through to find anything that sounds like it might be interesting, whether or not I’ve heard of the artist, and mark it on the schedule (last year I found that the Seattle Weekly’s guide had better rundowns on the acts, but the Stranger’s single-sheet 4-page schedule was easier to keep in my pocket). Then, when I’m wandering around, I just see what I’ve marked off, and randomly choose one for whatever time it is to check out. If I like them, great, if they don’t quite hold my interest, then there’s plenty of other choices.
Don’t be afraid to deviate from your plan, though. There’s so much good stuff out there that it’s impossible to see it all, so you shouldn’t stress about missing an act — and there’s likely to be something worth seeing that you wouldn’t have picked up on just from reading about it. Not being a big reggae fan, I never would have planned to stop by Jumbalassy last year, but hearing them as I walked by sucked me right in.
Take the time to just wander around and explore all the nooks and crannies. I almost completely missed the Jazz stage last year — it’s up some stairs, kind of tucked away in a corner. I keep forgetting how big Seattle Center is, and how easy it is to lose bits and pieces of it when you’re focusing on getting from a specific point A to point B. Follow your nose. :)
Don’t forget to peoplewatch! This goes beyond just trying to navigate through the crowds — see who all is around you, pay attention to them, keep an ear out on what they’re saying. I’ve discovered some good shows that I might have missed just by hearing some random stranger get all excited about whatever band they’re heading off to see. A small crowd of people gathered somewhere might be nothing more than a momentary traffic jam, but it might also be a street performer worth watching — I discovered one of my favorite local artists this way the first year I was at Bumbershoot. Saw a crowd and decided to see what was up, ended up picking up a couple CDs and have been a fan ever since.
And most importantly — have fun! Enjoy the music and the sun, browse through the craft booths, go play in the fountain, or wade in the pool. We’re blessed with a huge festival with a ton of things to do on a gorgeous weekend — don’t let it go to waste!
iTunes: “Peach (Cut.Rate.Box)” by Beborn Beton from the album Tales From Another World (1999, 4:43).
Finally, we made it to the end — day four of Bumbershoot is over and done with. After this post, no more Bumbershoot babbling until sometime next year!
I made sure to get to the Seattle Center right around noon today, as I was looking forward to both of the first two big acts in the stadium. First up was Leftover Salmon, having a blast with some good down-home bluegrass. They were obviously having a blast, and had a small lineup of three can-can dancers who came out on stage every so often to liven things up just a bit more. Not a bad way to get the day started in the least.
After Leftover Salmon left the stage, we had the requisite half hour wait in the sun as the stage was struck and then re-set for the next act. I was so glad I’d remembered to grab a bottle of water on the way out today, otherwise it would have been way to hot at that point. Eventually, Nickel Creek got onstage and started their set. Sara (their fiddle player) is quite the cutie, isn’t she? I was really enjoying their set, unfortunately, I had to take off about halfway through — I needed more food and less pot smoke (the clouds of marijuana drifting by were noticeable all weekend, and this morning I think I was surrounded by pot smokers, and it got a bit much for me).
I’d picked Karsh Kale as a possibility, so after grabbing some food, I headed over to the Bumbrella stage to check them out. Seemed to be fairly good Indian-flavored pop, unfortunately, it turns out that I showed up just in time for their last song. Ah, well — the one song was good, at least.
Since I’d missed Karsh Kale, I figured I’d head over to the Blues stage to catch the last half of Magic Slim and the Teardrops. Found a good open spot on the hill, kicked back, and half-dozed in the sun while listening to some good old Chicago-style blues. Not much better than relaxing to the blues on a good warm day, sometimes.
At this point, I was starting to get overheated, so I figured I’d stop into the EMP and catch United States of Electronica. Unfortunately, the line to get in to their show was incredibly long, so instead, I just wandered around in the “Fun Forest” carnival area for a little bit, watching people on the rides. It’s a cute little carnival area — not much to it, but what’s there is at least decent. None that I was really interested in hopping onto myself, but entertaining to watch for a while.
It had gotten to about 3:30 in the afternoon by now, and I realized that there was nothing on my schedule for the next few hours that I was really excited about seeing, and I’d about hit my overload point. After three and a half days, I finally hit a point where being in the middle of all those crowds in the hot sun was the last thing I wanted to do. Since I had a good five hours before R.E.M. came on stage (who I was excited about seeing) I figured that taking a break would be a good idea, so I hopped the monorail, came back to the apartment, and took a nap for a few hours. Very, very glad I did, too. I’m not sure I’d have made it through the rest of the day if I’d tried to stick it out.
The nap did a good job of rejuvenating me, though, so roundabout 8pm I headed back out to the Seattle Center and got into the stadium about twenty minutes before R.E.M.’s set started. It took a bit of jostling through the first few songs before I found a decent spot, but eventually a good space opened up, and I was able to see most of the show pretty clearly (though the pictures really don’t do it justice). They filled the full two hours that they’d been given plus some, when they decided to toss in a few extra songs “just because we can.” Absolutely incredible show, and they finished off with “It’s the End of the World As We Know It (and I Feel Fine)”, which blew me away. Awesome show.
All in all, another really good Bumbershoot weekend. Tons of sun, tons of incredible music, and a lot of fun.
And that’s all, folks.
And here we go again — day three of this year’s Bumbershoot!
I was running a little late on my way out the door this morning, so rather than spending any time wandering when I showed up, I went straight into the stadium and made it in about halfway through Black Eyed Peas’ set. While I’ll freely admit that hip-hop isn’t my strongest subject, the bill for today’s “Hip Hop 101” show was too good to pass up. About all I really knew of Black Eyed Peas was the single from a couple years back with Macy Gray, “Request Line,” but I thought they did a fairly good job. They even got Reggie, the lead singer for Maktub, up on stage with them for one song, which was cool to see.
After Black Eyed Peas finished, we were treated to about 30 minutes of standing around in the hot sun and waiting — very glad I actually thought to put on sunscreen this morning. Eventually, though, old-school hip-hop pioneers De La Soul hit the stage. They’re a group I’ve known of for quite a while now, and they had a blast playing with the audience and getting everyone involved. At one point they were listing off some of the many artists they’ve worked with over the years, mentioned Tribe Called Quest…and then brought one of the members of Tribe onstage with them for a couple songs. At first I thought it was Q-Tip, but then I think I heard them say another name, so I’m afraid I’m not entirely sure who it was. Still, a fun show. I took off after De La Soul, though. The third act for that bill was Common, who I’ve not heard of, and I needed to find some shade for a few minutes.
During my wandering, I happened upon a street performer who I remembered from my first year at Bumbershoot. I think his name is David Kelley (though I could be wrong), and he finishes his act by balancing upon three boards stacked on eight wooden blocks on top of a free rolling section of pipe, while juggling three machetes and holding a pointy stick in his mouth with a spinning plate on the stick. Pretty damn impressive each time I’ve seen it. Even more entertaining, though, was that he had picked a helper out of the audience to hand him the knives, stick, and plate once he was on the blocks. However, after handing the various implements of destruction to the kid, David stepped back, as if the kid was supposed to do the trick. Amusing in itself, but even more so when the kid shrugged and started to try to step up onto the contraption! David quickly assured the kid (and his parents) that he didn’t need to make the attempt after all.
Next up on my music list was Golgo Bordello, who were…well, they were certainly entertaining. The music was very loud, fast, raucous gypsy/cossack type music, and while they weren’t the best singers or musicians I’ve ever heard, they more than made up for in pure insane energy. The lead guy was tearing all over the stage, and at a few points added to the percussion by slamming his microphone on the stage hard enough to dent it — by the end of their set, the only mic he could find that still worked was the one that had been attached to the bell of the saxophone player’s instrument. Completely crazy, was the verdict of more than a few people I heard talking as we all walked away afterwards.
I meant to catch the end of Chuck Prophet’s set at the blues stage, but didn’t end up making it over there in time. So instead, I hung around to see just what the deal was with the Space Harp, an art/music installation at the base of the Space Needle. This turned out to be a fascinating show. The Space Harp itself (or, technically, Earth Harp) is a huge stringed instrument, with the strings reaching from a platform at the base of the Space Needle to a point about halfway up the Space Needle, at about the 250 foot level. Each string has a wooden stopper at some point to tune it, and they are played by being rubbed with rosin-coated gloves. Quite an impressive piece of work, and their compositions (assisted by drums and electric violin) were very fun. Definitely worth the time to see!
This little bit of childhood ingenuity was probably my favorite part of the entire day. At some point, some kids had discovered that with the relatively smooth slope of the bowl of the International Fountain, if you wet the stone down, then you can sit your butt down on a frisbee and go sliding down the side of the bowl! There was a group of about six kids doing this, occasionally joined by older kids (from teens to twentysomethings) who couldn’t resist the urge to give it a shot.
I ended up sitting and watching this for at least a good half an hour. At any given point, you’d have two or three kids running into the fountain, filling water bottles, and then running back up to dump them onto the slide area to keep it nice and wet. Meanwhile, there was the occasional cry of glee as one of the kids went zooming by. Sometimes they’d coast to a stop at the bottom of the slope, but every so often one would have the right amount of momentum to send them careening directly into the jets of water from the fountain. So much fun to watch, and probably to do, too — though I didn’t ever give it a shot myself.
I ended up having to take a break for a bit and run back into downtown Seattle to get more batteries for my camera. Once I made it back to the Seattle Center, I took a few minutes to wander through the video game area by the carnival. There are a few little-kid rides in the building, and there was an older gentleman, clearly ready for his shift to end, resting on one of the Dumbo cars. I noticed him on my way out, and grabbed a quick shot.
Impromptu drum circles have a tendency to pop up all over Bumbershoot, at all times, and with all sorts of spectators. Generally, you’re more likely to have a fairly large crowd of hippies gathered around and dancing, but this one caught my eye because the dancers were primarily your average trendy Abercrombie and Fitch or Gap dressed teens. While it made me laugh, it was also pretty cool to see some of them drop the pretension for a bit and just cut lose, have fun, and enjoy the beat for a while.
The two big headlining bands for the evening stadium concert tonight were Cold and Evanescence. Cold I don’t really know at all, and the only thing I’d heard from Evanescence was their single off of the Daredevil soundtrack, which got a resounding “Eeeehhh…” from me when I heard it. Having seen both of them live now, I can safely say that contrary to the promo copy in the Seattle Weekly’s event schedule, Cold sounds like every other modern pop metal band out there, and Evanescence sounds like every other modern pop metal band out there if the other bands had female singers. Neither of them were really bad per se, but they didn’t do much to really impress me, either. Considering how happy Evanescence said they were because local radio station The End was willing to “try something different” when they started playing Evanescence’s single, the only real difference I could see between them and any other modern metal was that they have a female vocalist. If people are hungry for strong, heavy, female-led music, as seems to be the basis for much of Evanescence’s popularity, I’d quite happily recommend any given Pigface track that has Meg Lee Chin on vocals, or the Kidney Thieves, or probably quite a few other bands that I can’t come up with right now.
But then, Pigface and the Kidney Thieves aren’t mainstream enough to be picked up by MTV or radio. I guess people will just continue to be sheep instead…
Anyway, enough grousing. Another good day done. Not as strong as yesterday, but not a bad day by any means. Tomorrow brings a strong opening with the alt-country/bluegrass sounds of Leftover Salmon and Nickel Creek, and a strong end to the weekend with Wilco and R.E.M. Should be fun!
Allrighty then — day two of my wanderings at Bumbershoot 2003.
As usual, I started the day with a little aimless wandering around, peoplewatching, and watching kids play at the International Fountain. These three boys were having a blast, constantly running in, shrieking at how cold the water was and running back out to shiver for a moment, only to to tearing back in a couple minutes later, huge grins on their faces.
The day was another gorgeous scorcher, too — at least 80-some degrees, but at times it sure felt warmer than that. If I didn’t have pockets full of stuff (including my camera) I might have done some soaking in the fountain myself!
The only one of Le Petit Cirque’s performances I caught was this acrobat. Again, the stage was revolving around as he did his tricks, first on top of two small hand-size platforms, then later on just one, as in this picture. I can’t imagine being able to hold myself in the positions that these people do during their shows, just incredible.
My first musical show of the day, and my first venture into the main stadium area, was for Macy Gray. While I’m not a huge fan of hers, I do like a fair chunk of the songs on her first album, so I figured I’d see how she did with a live show. I was actually really impressed, too. While there were times when I was a little curious if she was a bit tipsy as she moved around the stage, that may have just been part of her stage presence, and she certainly put on a good show. Especially amusing was her trying to get the crowd to strip down as much as they would during “Sex O Matic Venus Freak” — even in mid-80 degree sunshine, the predominantly mid-20’s to mid-40’s white suburban crowd was a whole lot more likely to cheer than to start shedding clothes, especially at around one in the afternoon. Still, it was fun, and the closing jam on “I Try” was really strong.
After I made my way out of the stadium, I heard some really good sounds coming over from the Bumbrella stage, and made my way over there. Turns out it was Kinky, who I’d marked down as a possibility, and man did they put on a show. An incredible blend of mexican rhythms and drumming with rock-style guitars and a strong and very well incorporated electronic/synth element mixed in — the entire crowd was moving for their entire set, and later on when I tried to pick up their album, they were completely sold out. I was also impressed with how young they were — they all looked like they were in their late teens/early twenties, and they put on a show to rival (and beat) some of the older, more experienced artists I’d seen. Very, very cool, and I’ll definitely be picking their album up at some point.
After dancing around in the sun for both Macy Gray and Kinky I needed to cool off a bit, so I headed up to the wading pool to kick back for a few minutes. As with yesterday, quite a few families and kids had discovered the pool, and I was able to get some fun shots of kids splashing around in the water. Having that cool pond to soak your feet in midway through a hot day feels so nice too.
After cooling off for a bit I had three different acts marked down at the same time, so more or less at random I chose Carbon Leaf, and worked my way to the Backyard Stage where they were performing, and got another treat. Really solid celtic folk rock, and another show where the audience was obviously packed with fans. At one point the singer mentioned that they had CDs for sale, saw that someone in the audience already had one, and asked to use it for a visual aid, at which point it got handed over — complete with pen for an autograph. After signing it on stage, he complimented whoever handed it to him on a smooth little trick. Carbon Leaf also made it onto my “worth buying” list for the end of the weekend music binge.
Planet Beat Sound System was an interesting group, and a nice way to kick back and rest for a bit. While they weren’t really much of a show — primarily just a DJ and vocalist, with some extra drums added for some of the songs by an Indian drummer — the music was excellent. It was a style of Indian dance music called Bhangra that’s been gaining popularity over the past few years, something of a mix of today’s electronica dance beats with traditional Indian music and vocalizing. Neat stuff, a lot of fun to listen to, and they had a good couple groups of dancers bouncing around on either side of the stage.
Sitting back at the International Fountain, I got to watch a couple little boys indulge in a time-honored tradition for children everywhere — pigeon chasing! At times I almost feel sorry for the birds, but at the same time, I’ve yet to see them get caught, and they’ve got to be used to this kind of thing by now. And besides, it’s fun for the kids.
Next up on the schedule was the Dusty 45s — another incredible show (I had good luck with chosing bands today). Blisteringly cool rockabilly, and some of the best live rockabilly I’ve ever seen, too. Lots of original material, with a couple covers tossed in towards the end of the set, including “Saved!” (which I know from the ‘Commitments’ soundtrack) and “Misirlou” (most recently resurrected thanks to ‘Pulp Fiction’). For the last number, the lead singer/guitar player/trumpet player lit his trumpet as he played — that really is a flaming trumpet you see in the picture. Lots of swing dancing going on in the front rows, too. Another definite addition to my “worth buying” list!
There are DJ’s going all evening long in the Sky Church inside the EMP, so I swung through at one point to look around. The music was really good, but I just can’t justify spending a lot of time inside a building on a gorgeous weekend like this, so it was mostly just a spectator run. Still, whoever was spinning last night had some good stuff going, and the floor was pretty well packed with dancers. On the way in, I played a bit with the reflective outside of the EMP, and got this shot of the Space Needle reflected in the wall of the building as the sun was setting.
As night fell, I worked my way into the main stadium for the tribute to rhythm and blues with Bonnie Raitt, Shemika Copeland, Maxi Priest, and more. Unfortunately, the security was being pickier about not allowing photography, and even if I could have taken pictures, the floor was so crowded that I couldn’t get anywhere near the stage. Having already watched a fair amount of good blues over the weekend, and expecting to see more, I figured that I could live without having to deal with the crowds for this particular show. I ended up wandering around the grounds for a bit longer, than deciding that I was in a mood to finish of my day of Bhangra, mexican electro-pop, rockabilly, and celtic rock with some industrial and gothic music, and found my way home to head up to the Vogue.
And so ends day two of Bumbershoot.
Kellan asked if I had any tips for the rest of the Bumbershoot weekend. My response kept getting longer and longer, so I figured I might as well toss it up as a post of its own, rather than hiding it in the comment thread.
First off, some general tips and approaches I use for getting through the weekend:
I carry as little as possible, so I don’t wear myself down with a big bag or anything. Camera, wallet, a book to scribble down what I’m doing and seeing so the pictures make sense, and that’s about it.
The Bumbershoot guides published in the Seattle Weekly and the Stranger are godsends. Before each day starts, I browse through to find anything that sounds like it might be interesting, whether or not I’ve heard of the artist, and mark it on the schedule (this year I found that the Seattle Weekly’s guide has better rundowns on the acts, but the Stranger’s single-sheet 4-page schedule is easier to keep in my pocket). Then, when I’m wandering around, I just see what I’ve marked off, and randomly choose one for whatever time it is to check out. If I like them, great, if they don’t quite hold my interest, then there’s plenty of other choices.
Don’t be afraid to deviate from your plan, though. There’s so much good stuff out there that it’s impossible to see it all, so you shouldn’t stress about missing an act — and there’s likely to be something worth seeing that you wouldn’t have picked up on just from reading about it. Not being a big reggae fan, I never would have planned to stop by Jumbalassy yesterday, but hearing them as I walked by sucked me right in.
Take the time to just wander around and explore all the nooks and crannies. I almost completely missed the Jazz stage yesterday — it’s up some stairs, kind of tucked away in a corner. I keep forgetting how big Seattle Center is, and how easy it is to lose bits and pieces of it when you’re focusing on getting from a specific point A to point B. Follow your nose. :)
Don’t forget to peoplewatch! This goes beyond just trying to navigate through the crowds — see who all is around you, pay attention to them, keep an ear out on what they’re saying. I’ve discovered some good shows that I might have missed just by hearing some random stranger get all excited about whatever band they’re heading off to see. A small crowd of people gathered somewhere might be nothing more than a momentary traffic jam, but it might also be a street performer worth watching — I discovered one of my favorite local artists this way the first year I was at Bumbershoot. Saw a crowd and decided to see what was up, ended up picking up a couple CDs and have been a fan ever since.
And most importantly — have fun! Enjoy the music and the sun, browse through the craft booths, go play in the fountain, or wade in the pool. We’re blessed with a huge festival with a ton of things to do on a gorgeous weekend — don’t let it go to waste!
Now, for a quick list in no particular order of acts that I’m looking forward to trying to catch. Obviously I won’t catch them all, I’ll probably end up seeing quite a few people not on this list, and my tastes may not completely jibe with anyone else’s, but here’s where I’m starting from:
Saturday: Solmon Burke, Macy Gray, Rhythm and Blues tribute (Bonnie Raitt, Maxi Priest, Shemekia Copeland and more), Planet Beat Sound System, Dusty 45s, Blind Boys of Alabama, The Catheters, The Dandy Warhols.
Sunday: Black Eyed Peas, De La Soul, Cold, Evanescence, Chuck Prophet, American Hi-Fi.
Monday: Leftover Salmon, Nickel Creek, R.E.M., Daniel Lanois, Carissa’s Wierd, The New Pornographers, DJ Donald Glaude.
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!
My friend Holly, whom I’ve known since we both lived up in Anchorage, is going to be performing in tonight’s Pizzazz! Talent Show at Bumbershoot! She’s performing under the name ‘Holly Chernobyl’ — here’s her mini-interview from the Stranger:
Holly Chernobyl / Queen o’ burlesque
When did you first realize that you had Pizzazz!?
I burst from the womb singing “Life is a cabaret” through a mouthful of Quaaludes.
Who do you count as your influences/inspirations?
My mother Judy Garland and my father Mae West. And drag queens.
If you could have one talent besides the one you’re showcasing in Pizzazz!, what would it be?
Talent, schmalent. I have mutant fucking powers. I’m a superhero.
When you get to be rich and famous, what will be your biggest extravagance?
I will buy an island and create “Perfect Holly World,” where the sun shines every day and you get a tiara at the door.
Can art change the world, or just make it prettier?
I can do both, so pooh pooh on art.
J.Lo: Good or evil?
Evil. But God bless that ass.
Go Holly! The Pizzazz show starts at 7pm in the Bagley Wright Theatre — I’ll be there!
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?
Just something amusing — just got back from getting breakfast and batteries for my camera. Turns out the drugtstore has to store Lithium batteries behind the counter because they can be broken open and used in the production of crystal meth. Bizarre.
On my way into the Center, I stopped off at the blues stage for a moment. The Northwest Connection Community Choir was performing — good gospel music. Got one picture, but then they went from uptempo, soulful, hand-clapping gospel to a slower devotional tune, and I wandered off again.
Now I’m sitting in the balcony at the opera house. There’s a comedy/revue performance that looked interesting — the Madcap Cabaret, with Kevin Kent (drag queen and MC for the show), Bill Dana (comedian), Kiki & Herb (drag cabaret and musical comedy), and the Tiger Lillies (Gothic folk trio — whatever that is). Should be starting soon — it’s about 15 minutes past showtime, and the natives are getting restless.
Kiki & Herb are in their encore now. I can’t really say that I’m impressed, though from the sound of the crowd on the main floor, I may be in the minority. Loud and obnoxious, for the most part, and not much of the humor has really been that funny, though there is an occasional laugh. Not something I’d ever pay to see again, though.
Kevin Kent’s MC’ing isn’t bad, if it weren’t for the ultra-annoying falsetto voice he uses for his “Cookie” persona. He’s back on now — Kiki & Herb finally finished up.
At least the opening act was good. Bill Dana’s a comedian who is most famous for his Jose Jiminez character. His section started with an ‘interview’ between Jose and Cookie — quite amusing.
“This says you were a doctor.”
“Yes, I was a Geneologist.”
“Oh, my notes say you were a Gynecologist — a Geneologist is someone who looks up people’s backgrounds.”
[Pause…] “Wasn’t my way of saying it nicer?”
He went on for a bit, then Cookie introduced Kiki & Herb.
Right now we’re waiting for the Tiger Lillies — apparently there’s some sort of sound problem with the accordion. Cookie had spent the stage change time wandering through the audience and thoroughly embarassing a young man named Adam. He took it pretty well, though. When they were given the okay the Tiger Lillies came onstage — and discovered the accordion glitch. Hopefully this won’t take too long. It’s already 3pm, and this show is scheduled to end at 3:30pm. If it takes too much longer I may take off — Taj Mahal starts in the stadium at 4pm.
I gave up waiting for the Tiger Lillies to get started — aside from an announcemnt over the intercom apologizing, no apparent action had taken place by the time I left. Grabbed some pizza on my way to the stadium, then found myself an open spot on the field just as Taj Mahal & the Phantom Blues Band was coming on stage. Just a couple minutes later, I realized that Casey, Jen, Tim, and someone else were sitting just about 20 feet in front of me, so I moved up and am sitting with them.
The sun finally came out while I was in the opera house, too. What started out looking like a grey, drizzly day has turned into another gorgeous late summer day. I just know I’m going to get a bit sunburned again after this weekend.
More pot smoke drifting through the air. Pity I don’t like being stoned, since I’ve always liked that smell.
Well, I’m a little dumb (maybe it was that pot smoke?), but it’s not all bad. I forgot which stage I was aiming for and ended up at the rhythm stage, where WOFA is doing traditional African drumming. Got a picture of them and of the finished Bob Marley painting, but now I want to head over to the blues stage for the Zydeco band I was actually aiming for.
Good, good Zydeco. C. J. Chenier and the Red Hot Louisiana Band — thought about picking up a CD, but I’ve spent way too much this weekend as it is, so I’ll look into it later. I’d also like to pick up one of the Bumbershoot shirts — will check their website soon to see what they’re not sold out of.
Back at my usual spot in the bowl of the fountain again. Some momo just dropped his pipe — a nice glass one, too. It didn’t break, but he did lose his bowl as it bounced down the slope. He didn’t seem to thrilled.
I’ve got roughly an hour to kill before Nikol Collars, the last artist I’ve got marked as a possibility for today. I’m thinking I’ll go ahead and head home after her. Since i’ve been here all weekend long I haven’t had a chance to do laundry yet, which would be a good idea before the work week kicks in.
This has been a hell of a weekend, though. Managed to hit most of the shows I wanted to see, and enjoyed everything except that Kiki & Herb cabaret this afternoon. One sub-par show over four days isn’t bad at all, though. Definitely need to thank Kevin again for the ticket when I get a chance.
Just ran into Ogre (the doorman for local goth/industrial club The Vogue, who Chad and Dez introduced me to when I first got to town), his wife Mickey, and a couple friends of theirs, Adam (?) and…well, a lady whose name I can’t remember. Chatted with them for a few minutes, then headed over to the northwest court stage for Nikol Collars.
Unfortunately, Nikol has apparently cancelled. Nina Hynes is playing instead, which is fine — I’d had one of her shows marked as a possibility earlier in the weekend and hadn’t made it. Guess I get a second chance.
I’m sitting at the bus stop to go home now. Nina was good, and very pretty — pretty girl, pretty voice, and pretty songs — but a bit more mellow than I was really hoping for. Watched about half an hour or so, then wandered off. Swung by the fountain to sit and check my schedule to make sure there wasn’t anything else that I really wanted to catch, and since there wasn’t, I figured it was a good time to head out.
So that was my Labor Day/Bumbershoot weekend. Not bad, not bad at all. This journal (and eventual post on my webpage) can’t even come close to capturing everything that went on, or even everything I saw and heard, but I tried to get as much as I could down. Very cool — going back into the workaday week tomorrow is going to seem almost depressingly mundane, I think.
Interesting — there’s a guy on the opposite corner of the intersection with a boombox, just jamming out to whatever’s on the radio — and he just switched it from buttrock to madrigals. Interesting combination, that’s for sure. As long as he’s happy, I guess.