It’s our annual trip to Seattle for the Bumbershoot Music and Arts Festival. We go every year, since 2001, making this our 18th year in a row. And we love it more than ever. This year our granddaughter Josephine went with us again. Also traveling, our friends Mama O and Claudia (first time for her).
I’ll post some pictures soon, but first, here’s what we did on our trip.
Tuesday August 28th
We took the Blue Van to the airport and caught our Southwest flight to Seattle’s SEA-TAC airport. From there we took the Link Light Rail, easy-peasy, to a few blocks from our condo at the Worldmark Seattle aka The Camlin. It was too early to check in so we stowed our luggage and walked down to El Borracho, near Pike Place Market, for some tasty Mexican food (with numerous vegan options of course). By then it was time to check in at the Camlin so we unpacked then walked to the monorail, which we took to the Seattle Center. We lounged around the International Fountain for a while, it’s pretty and peaceful. We walked across and down the street to Bartell’s Drugs (upstairs) and the Metropolitan Market (downstairs) and bought some supplies for the week. We took the stuff on the monorail back to the Camliln. We talked up with trip-mates Mama O and Claudia for a bit, then called it a night. [continued]
Wednesday August 29th
After a snack in the room, we walked down to the transit terminal to update our Orca transit cards. Josephine now has a student one that is good until she turns 19 and I got a senior one that is good until, well, you know. Petra has a regular one for now, but then again she doesn’t get any discounts! It was a bus and light rail day for us. First we traveled to the University District for the excellent all-you-can-eat, all-vegan Thai Food lunch buffet at Araya’s Place. So good and as much as you want. Don’t forget the peanut sauce. Then we walked down the street to Vegan Haven, a vegan store, and bought a couple small items. Across the street and down just a little is a really nice community garden that we paused in for a few minutes. Then we bus/trained it to the Capitol Hill area for visits to the Elliot Bay Book Company and a personal favorite Everyday Music. While in the area we stopped at Mighty-O Donuts (all-vegan donut store) and picked up one each to eat and a dozen to go! Sweet! Then back to the condo to drop off the donuts and music/books. It was early and easy so we went back to the University District and got a couple vegan pizzas from Pizza Pi (all vegan place, once again). We took those on the bus back to the room, cool, huh? And it was dinner.
Thursday August 30th
We bussed to a new place, the Living Computer Museum. It was great, they had basically a huge history of computing, from early fill-the-room machines to the Apple 1 to mainframe computers to Commodore 64s to Apple IIe’s (I had one a long time ago), and on forward, including modern technologies like virtual reality, robots, and video games. Highly recommended if you like computers at all. Then we bussed to the Seattle Center and had lunch in the Armory building. Petra and I ate at the Plum Pantry there (all-vegan, once again) and it was very good. Next up was a visit to the MoPop Museum (formerly the Experience Music Project). We wanted to see the new Pearl Jam exhibit. I’m not that big of a fan of the band but they did a great job with the exhibit and it was pretty interesting. We also checked out the Can’t Look Away Horror exhibit, Josephine loved it. Then back to the condo. We had some planning and deciding to do for the Bumbershoot Festival tomorrow.
Friday August 31st
Day 1 of the Bumbershoot Music And Arts Festival. It’s always a wonderful three days of the year, and this year was no exception. We had lunch at Veggie Grill and then took the monorail over to the Seattle Center grounds, where the festival takes place. We had bought mid-level VIP tickets so we skipped the line and walked over to the VIP area for some complimentary drinks and snacks to take for the afternoon. The first music act we saw was Let’s Eat Grandma. Yes that is really their name, something about how important a comma can be if you leave it out. It’s two young girls on keyboards and other instruments with a female drummer in back. They looked really young but they were really good and I’ve actually heard a song of theirs on Sirius XM a few times now. Then we saw a short solo set form Sam Lynch, billed as alt-folk but more singer-songwriter. It was pleasant enough and we were up close. Next up was the Ethan Tucker Band. Apparently they were befriended by Michael Franti and he recommended them. They were very good and we got the set list at the end of the set. We were up close for this one too and we all liked it.
Next up, Josephine wanted to see Bhad Bhabie (Bad Baby), an internet sensation/train wreck who got famous by being obnoxious on the Dr Phil show apparently. I watched a song or two and it was worse than I even expected, immature posing and juvenile rapping with a huge amount of profanity. I left her to watch the rest while I met up with Petra. Here and there throughout the festival days we snacked, checked out vendors, etc but I won’t go into all that. The next music was Moses Sumney, a soul-ish singer with some style and charm but about half of the set was enough. So much else to see and it wasn’t my cup of tea. We went to see The Arkells at a different stage and they totally rocked the house. The singer was born to be a rock star, very charismatic, and the songs were filled with catchy hooks. It was very good, and we actually got two copies of the set list! I waited around a few minutes and the singer came out and talked to me for a few minutes, signed one of the set lists, and took a photo of me with the Space Needle in the background. How cool is that? Then we watched most of a set by Noah Gunderson. He was pretty good, nice songs, worth seeing. After a break it was time for the headliners The Chainsmokers. They have worked on a dozen or more recent pop hits as producers and composers (aka guys with laptop computers). It was just them without the guest vocals from the radio so there were a lot of prerecorded parts but they accompanied and revved up the crowd, along with their live drummer. And smoke. And fire. And fireworks. It was an impressive display visually and that made for an entertaining show.
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