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Saturday September 1
Today was the first day of the happiest place on Earth. No, not Disneyland, sheesh! This is way better. Three long days of music, comedy, dance, and most of the other arts. We discovered the Bumbershoot Music and Arts Festival in 2001 and attended that year and every year since, making this our twelfth year. Some people travel with us, sometimes different people every year and then again some come year after year. We certainly do and hopefully this will continue. Heck, we already have a room reserved for the 2013 Festival and so does our friend Linda!
By the way, best improvement ever, this year: giant video screens at almost all the outdoor venues, so everyone can see!
We got to the festival early, lined up at the VIP entrance to avoid the lines. Once inside, we made a dash to the Starbucks Lounge. We had pre-registered for the free lounge and so we picked up our Starbucks passes. This meant we had a special place at one of the stages and free coffee drinks all three days of the festival, as many as we wanted. They expanded the area this year so it was a little less crowded with more room to chill and use the free charging stations to recharge the cell phones. If they can put a man on the moon, why can’t they make a cell phone battery that lasts a long time! So anyway, we got a coffee (soy latte, to be specific) and went to the Gold/Platinum hospitality lounge. We had some food there with our friends Karl and Betty and planned our next move. We all ended up going to a dance performance, a three person group called Galumpha, I think Linda and Sam saw this too. The dancers were pretty good, though modern dance is not my main interest. I still enjoyed it. Then we went into the main stage and saw Australian Missy Higgins. According to the bio, she has sold more in her country than Olivia Newton John and Kylie Minogue. All I know, is that I like her better than either of them. She was really good, her singing and songs were pop-based but not dumb, and the band was sharp. I picked up her new CD “The Old Razzle Dazzle” and even got it autographed by her, along with a picture (the pictures will be online soon). So, I got back a little late for the next musical act, Gotye. His song “Someone That I Used To Know” is one of the most-played songs of the year, and yes, he did that song. But the rest of his stuff is pretty good too. He’s been compared to Peter Gabriel and Sting and those are valid. Not bad company, especially Peter.
Then we separated for a little while. Petra went to see J.C. Brooks and the Uptown Sound in the small “secret stage”, who she liked a lot, while I saw some comedy: Paul F. Tomkins, Jen Kirkman, and Kumail Nanjiani. Pretty funny stuff! Then I met back up with Petra and Karl and Betty, who had already reserved some seats in the Main Stage for the Awolnation show. I’ve been enjoying their CD Megalithic Symphony, quite a bit. The live show was more raw and, well, noisy, so the hooks and versatility were not as prominent. But it was still good. The lead guy actually crowd surfed and sang standing up on the crowd for a few minutes. And they did Sail and It’s Not Your Fault and most of the rest of the songs on the album. Then we left the main stage, no interest in the next act Jane’s Addiction, instead we watched singer-songwriter M. Ward and his band. They were good and they left us looking forward to their “secret stage” show tomorrow.
Sunday September 2
At the festival, we had a free coffee drink and some food in the Hospitality lounge and then went to the “secret stage” to see M. Ward. The shorter show in the more intimate venue was very good, better then the large stage show last night if only because of the better venue. I managed to snag the set list from the stage too! We left but then headed right back to the “secret stage” to see The Helio Sequence. It was only two people, guitar and drums, with some minor prerecorded parts, but they made a wall of sound. Not noise, and it was actually pretty good. The we headed out to a bigger venue to see white female rapper Katie Kate. After one song we had seen enough, and we decided to see some comedy instead. We saw Damien Lemon, Karen Kilgariff, and Brian Posehn, and they were funny but the two guys relied too much on fart and dick jokes. Still, we laughed. After that, while we recharged ourselves with a free Starbucks and recharged our phones too, we could watch the Harmonica House Party from our spot. It was billed as that, with Lee Oskar (harmonica on Low Rider and lots of other songs) and Magic Dick (harmonica with the J. Giels Band). Mostly it seemed like Oskar, then he finally did bring Magic Dick out. The music was routine blues and the harmonica was pretty good, but overall it was nothing special.
Next we wanted something less ordinary and more innovative, so we headed back to the “secret stage” for Sweden’s Niki And The Dove. They sometimes sounds nicely strange ala Kate Bush and other times sounded more hooky than that. But it was pretty interesting and catchy and we ended up buying their CD too. After they finished, we went back outdoors into the beer (and wine) garden and from there watched singer-songwriter Katie Herzig. She was good, so we ended up (guess) buying her CD too and also got it signed and got a pic with her. After some (more) food (we ate off and on all three days!), it was time to see Thenewno2, the band which is led by Dhani Harrison, son of former Beatle George Harrison. They were good, though the crowd was small. That might have been because Dhani was not mentioned anywhere in the press bio. Good for us though, since we could watch from anywhere we wanted. And then it was almost over. We had a last beverage while watching the end of Keane’s set. They did “Somewhere Only We Know”, which is my favorite song of theirs. The rest of it was just ok but certainly not bad. And then it was time to head back to the hotel after another great day!
Part 3 coming soon, including the rest of the festival and the rest of the trip…
Were you there? Did I forget anything? Did you spot a typo? Or do you just want to say something about all this? Well then leave me a comment below, I love when that happens!
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