Sound Fest

Somewhere there’s a cubby in one of the amusement park games at Seattle Center’s Fun Forest where a carny – bored for an eternal lack of business – settled in for a quick nap. For the sake of lame storytelling, we’ll just pretend his nap was more like a coma.

This all happened in 1996, of course, and our slightly-behind-the-times carny’s fashion sense still clings desperately to baggy flannel and army boots sans laces. His hands, however, cling to a black, zip-up clamshell CD case. Remember those?

“Smash”, “Here’s Where The Strings Come In”, “High/Low”, “Purple”, “Odelay.”

Surely over the course of 12 years some punk would have found the carny and swiped his tunes. Again, to keep a lame story short, we’ll say it happens in 2008, and he wakes up shortly later to discover his CDs gone, and a jillion people – none wearing flannel — at Seattle Center. The signs tell him what’s up. Bumbershoot.

The 2008 Seattle is a much different place, where only hipsters live in Belltown (Sans “those” stores…) and the Prius has usurped the Subaru Outback as the must-have auto. Adjusting will be difficult for our confused carny. Worry not, because he’s at Bumbershoot 2008. At least his tunes are there.

Offspring (3:15 to 4:45 p.m. Sept. 1, Mainstage), Superchunk (7:45 to 8:45 p.m. Sept. 1, Mainstage), Nada Surf (8:45 to 10 p.m. Aug. 30, Amphitheatre), Stone Temple Pilots (9:15 to 10:45 p.m. Aug. 31, Mainstage) and Beck (9:15 to 10:45 p.m. Aug. 30, Mainstage).

Those bands, my Bumbershoot picks this year, have absolutely nothing to do with what I’m actually going to see (Except maybe Beck.), they’re about helping you relive the 90s if you so wish.

Yeah, yeah, most of them have recorded new stuff, but you have to admit it: You just want to hear Beck do “Where It’s At.”

So does our Carney. A few mid-90s classics and he’ll settle right back into the groove.

Just don’t tell him how much it’ll cost to drive back to Burien.

- Derek “Don’t Call Me McDreamy” Sheppard

Tags: beck, mainstage, nada surf, offspring, stone temple pilots, superchunk

This entry was posted on Friday, August 29th, 2008 at 8:51 am by Derek Sheppard and is filed under Bumbershoot 2008. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.