Sound Fest

I wandered around, saw the Shakeltons, The Blakes and some random non-mainstage acts. Click on the photo below to see a gallery of scenes from the day’s shows and festival-goers.

Kathleen Edwards took the Mural Amphitheatre stage at 3:15 p.m. She’s a Canadian singer/songrwriter who’s been at Bumbershoot two to three times in the last five years. She played guitar and there was a keyboardist with her. It was a nice acoustic change of pace for amphitheatre stage.

I caught the first part of the Shackeltons. The part I saw wasn’t all that good (though Angela, who saw the second half disagrees). Maybe I convinced myself that since I could only stayed for a little while that they can’t be that good or I’d want to stay.

Manooghi Hi on the Fisher Green stage started off like quaint ethnic band, but when I went back by there later, they’d switched into full riff-rock mode. I should have known because when they were sound-checking the bass with the riff from “Dazed and Confused.”

Now I’m headed off to Bremerton and the Blackberry Festival.

I think Black Keys is going to be a key shows in the festival this year and with Stone Temple Pilots coming on right behind them, I think they compliment each other really well.

Tomorrow, I’m going to try to start off with Paramore, and I will just hang tough at Bumebrshoot all day long …

- Michael Moore

So if you’re not already entirely over Saturday’s portion of the Bumbershoot goodness, I have a little housecleaning to do. I apparently left off a post with some of my photos from day one with a little look at arts, Vicci Martinez, kittens (yes, kittens, I’m such a girl, what can I say?) and more bands. Click on the photo below to see a gallery of all of them.

- Angela Dice

Sunday got off to a cold, rainy start but that didn’t deter the long line of festival goers waiting for the 11 a.m. opening. The early risers were rewarded with a sun break just before noon and a chock-full schedule. A few hundred gathered for Star Anna’s 12 p.m. performance on the Starbucks Stage. A couple dozen danced in front of the stage to the Ellensburg native’s blend of rock and country. Most of the others lounged on the grass, funnel cakes or coffee in-hand.

The Lonely H, a classic rock-inspired foursome from Port Angeles, played to an enthusiastic, overflowing crowd in the Sky Church. Though the band members just graduated in 2007, the keyboard-heavy group attracted a wide age group, with preteens cheering alongside their parents. Though Bumbershoot goers tend to roam between shows, few people left during the middle of The Lonely H’s high-energy performance.

Keyshia Cole’s mainstage performance started a half hour late and an announcer mistakenly told the crowd that T.I. would be coming out next. Nonetheless, a good-sized crowd waited out on the hot, sunny field or in the chilly, shady bleachers for the R & B singer-songwriter. Her voice was both soulful and sweet, but slightly overpowered by her music. Her performance seemed directed at women, addressing her female audience members many time. The show included a cover of a few lines from Prince’s “When Doves Cry” and her half of “Last Night,” her duet with Diddy.

After Cole’s performance, the mainstage crowd didn’t have to wait long for rapper T.I. to take the stage. The Atlanta native, who announced “this is the south portion of the show,” was welcomed by a very enthusiastic audience, who threw their hands in the air and cheered, especially during his first couple of songs.

The music has started on Day Two. Ashleigh Flynn played for about 10 minutes ont he Northwest Court, and Star Anna brought out some twangy electric guirtar on the Mural Amphitheatre stage.

Hope you didn’t miss Jazz Northwest on at the Northwest Court/Wells Fargo stage. There was a band of Wazzu faculty playing, and WSU was kicking he living crap out of Oklahoma State (jazz) It’s like the Oklahoma State guys nevery even showed up. (Editor’s note: Um, Mike, didn’t you go to WSU? And what about that game yesterday …)

Over on the Fisher Green stage they’re playing — honest to God — easy listening ’80s pop hits. This is my second vocorder sighting of Bumbershoot (the first being with Throw Me The Statue). they played “Moonlight Feels Right.

Over on the Broad Street Stage, there’s a kind of Primus knockoff, but with a really good bass player.

The main stage has opened up supposedly with Keisha Cole, but 20 minutes into her start time, she still wasn’t on stage. Later in the day there’ll be performances by TI, Black Keys and Stone Temple Pilots later this afternoon.

I’ll be roaming around here for awhile and will let you know how things are going.

- Michael Moore

To see a local from Bumbershoot, check out the Seattle Weekly’s Bumbershoot Beard slideshow. (I know, I get the irony). Anyway, the rest of the show is worth a little non-music break.

Beck should have been a good show. From the first hits off “Odelay” to the Bollboard No. 4 debuting of this year’s “Modern Guilt”, he’s been wowing fans with his reinventions and entertaining antics.

But on Saturday, his performance was about as exciting as a live telecast on public television. In his defense, he had an interesting, bluesy little take on Dylan’s “Leopard Skin Pill Box Hat”. But the “Nicotine and Gravy” was not so sexy and the yawns set in.

So I left.

I wandered until I hit the Fisher Green stage where a writihing mass was pressing up against the barricade to the techno pop beats of !!! (pronounce Chk, chk, chk). Singer Nic Offer was somehow infectious with his hip shakes in short shorts and a snug patterned shirt that hinted at his paunch. It was perhaps the most energetic and better end to a great day at Bumbershoot.

FYI, by Sunday morning, no enterprising cell phone videographer had yet posted a !!! video, so I thought I’d give you all at least some kind of taste with one of their past performances:

You can’t say M. Ward wasn’t appreciative of the several hundred folks who brave the chilly evening to fix their ears upon him. He did, after all, go on at the same time as Beck.

“You guys have probably heard “Devil’s Haircut” on the radio too many times anyway,” the Portland-based country/folk/blues-ish artist said.

“But we came here for you.”

I”ll make no secret of this fact. M. Ward’s most recent disc, “Post War”, has been in my car’s 6-cd changer more than a year. And I’m pretty sure my iPod is begging me to play something different. You could say that album and I have a little bromance going on.

And Mr. Ward did not disappoint Saturday night, playing mostly songs off “Post War,” which included a rousing version of “To Go Home”, and “Magic Trick” was more sing-a-long than performance.

But for this day I’d held my breath…hoping…wondering. Might the incestuous nature of alt-country kings and queens make Bumbershoot something truly special?

As you can see, M. Ward and Neko Case are no strangers. (She sang some harmony on “Post War.”) Sadly, neither appeared in the other’s sets. Schedules, I suppose. None the less, both put on stellar performances.

It was fitting that Ward ended the show with “Big Boat”. A yarn about a guy with boat he thinks is great…but it’s not. It’s slow. And a ferry boat, which is where I am now. It’s like he knew….

On with the pics:

Saul Williams and band tore apart the Fisher Green stage.

The spoken word hip-hop artist gathered around him a tribe of fans sporting green feathers in their hair to match his own head of orange feathers. They bobbed their heads and gyrated to near-industrial techno grooves and let out a collective holler when near the end of the set, Williams broke out into the rendition of U2′s “Sunday, Bloody Sunday” that debuted on his 2007 album, “The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust! ”

Midway through the song, though, he stopped.

“Wait, this isn’t Sunday, it’s Saturday …” from which he broke into the unacompanied spoken word of “Act III Scene 2 (Shakespeare)”, getting even further eruption of applause with the line, “And what you do is question everything they say do, every goal ideal or value they keep pushing on you.”

From there, he broke into the now well-known “List of Demands” (go find my earlier picks entry to see the Nike video from which it’s known), and it was good night to all.

See more photos inside …

Read the rest of this entry »

Ok, The Walkmen fans, here’s your diet of pics from Saturday’s show at Bumbershoot. I’d write more, but I’ve gotta meet some VIPs. The set was tight, high energy, and lots of other music cliches I can’t think of right now. On to the pics…