so yeah, wow, i just got home from my TOTALLY KICK-ASS WEEKEND at seattle's fabulous annual event, bumbershoot, and tomorrow i fly to phoenix to visit friends there. yay!
bumbershoot never fails to amaze me at times. the sheer number of people dictates a certain amount of divrsity, but this tends to go even beyond that. for being a music festival with pop-rock headliners like cake and david lee roth, it attracts a lot of people of all ages, from infants to the elderly, and everyone, i hope, is having a shitload of fun. now, i never go to bumbershoot with a very specific plan, nor do i like to see the acts with whom i'm most familiar or fannish. for one, those acts are unpredictable, crowded, or ultimately disappointing (the worst for someone who's fallen in love with a recording), and for another, i just paid $12 a day for the opportunity to see as many acts as i can or want to in a day, many i've only heard mentioned. this is the best way to get to know more. if i wanted to see one particular band, i'd buy a ticket to THEIR concert, provided i liked the venue. at bumbershoot, i see what i've never before seen, and that's what makes it fun. it's a veritable snack platter of music and arts of all kinds, and instead of boring apples, cheese, and crackers, this has snow peas, sushi, and lemon squares. y'know what i'm sayin'?
thus concludes emily's bumbershoot philosophy 101. stay tuned for 102 whenever i feel like spouting it.
anyway. i saw a lot of acts and a lot of people and thought a lot of things, only a few of which i had the means to write down. i think i'll take this opportunity to fill up twelve pages of blogger with descriptions and highlights, as far as i can remember.
saturday: mom dropped me off outside the space needle/emp entrance around noon, and i made my way to the opera house for cat power. the first familiar face i saw was jason webley, stomping around near the fountain to a gathering crowd. i grinned, but continued my quickened pace, for the lovely cat power in the opera house is not to be missed by these eyes. i saw her two years ago (hey, i don't own any of her albums, so the bumbershoot philosophy is still more or less intact), and she was so shy that she discouraged applause. this year, she learned graciousness and even attempted a keith richards impersonation at the end of her set. low was to play next, but i had scheduled to meet jana and skipped out. i later regretted it a little.
after meeting jana and her friends, i began to make a couple of important discoveries that improved my overall bumbershooting experience this year. first i grabbed food at the nearby qfc, which taught me three lessons: one, the line at the atm a block away from the grounds is nonexistent; two, the exact same water bottle that is $2 on the grounds is $0.89 at any grocery store; and, three, that qfc sucks donkey balls. after enjoying my simple lunch of yogurt, bagel, and water, i wanted to check out david cross on the comedy stage. a quick glance at the line surrounding the comedy stage nixed that idea. i learned to plan ahead if i wanted to see the funny. then i caught a street performer's juggling act before meandering into the electrodeck half an hour early for dj ko's set. i danced for about an hour, then left and got some food and wandered for quite awhile.
at some point, kevin of #n00n noticed my rock hen roll t-shirt and introduced himself. that was pretty cool. he and his traveling companion, tamber (err, i think that's her name), were going to wait in line for a comedy show whose time conflicted with my meeting jana at a reggae show, so we parted company. i lost the next hour or so, but then found jana, robin, and brian (for all i know their names are spelled with 'y's, but ah well) and enjoyed clinton fearon and the boogie brown band for the next hour and a half or so. ah, the happy dancing and pot smoke wafting about. i stood around at the beginning of neko case's set, but i also wanted to see carissa's wierd and my feet hurt, so i went to the sky church and sat by the door. an older gentleman came in later and sat down next to me, and we chatted for a bit before the show started. the music was pretty, so much that i think i may eventually invest in a cd or two, but i had to leave early to catch a bus with jana.
sunday: in the morning, jana felt too lazy to go to bumbershoot first thing, so we watched her new dvd, return to me, instead. not my kind of movie at all, but it was cute. the funny thing was this line about not shaving your legs before a first date so you won't feel tempted to be 'slutty' and get laid on the first date (issues i won't even discuss now), at which point jana turned to me and said, "isn't that so true?" i told her i hadn't shaved my legs in two years until about a week ago, at which point it was only boredom that the hair was removed. now i still feel like there is an angry hippy lesbian inside of me pushing itself out, stubbly leg hair by stubbly leg hair, because my irritation at the whole shaving thing grows similarly. but it's cool. *smile*
so yeah. i saw about 2.5 shows that day, .5 of which was divided in half. i danced to about 20 minutes of dj logic before getting in line for the comedy stage. this time i got in after only 45 minutes (*snort*), but the wait was worth it, because i was rolling in the funny with brian posehn, jackie kashian, and greg fitzsimmons. i then enjoyed the end of the old 97's set before speed-walking to the flag pavilion for the red elvises. but alas, it seemed there was still someone else playing, or at least the look of a crowd still there, so i wandered for another half an hour before returning to find an even bigger, more evil crowd, in which i was supposed to find jana how? basically, i didn't; i couldn't find a spot to stand at which i could either (a) see or (b) dance, which essentially ruins the red elvises concert experience for me, so i said fuck it, grabbed a combo plate from thai heaven, and beat it to the line for the reverend horton heat show at key arena. the rev show was fan-fucking-tabulous; i stood in the back and danced the whole time, which is my favorite way to enjoy a concert, i mean really enjoy it. i only wanted for a dance partner.
my last half an hour at bumbershoot sunday before the bus arrived was spent lying on the incline at the fountain, listening to the impromtu drum circle below and watching the moon rise around the space needle.
monday: jana decided she needed a day of rest before going back to work today, so she gave me her keys, u-pass, and ticket and away i went. the day was fabulous. the first thing i caught was madcap cabaret, featuring a couple drag queens, some truly amusingly awful covers of pop songs (including two radiohead songs, "creep" and "exit music," hahahah), and classic comedian bill dana. well, i didn't know who he was, but only everyone over 50 in the audience did, so i don't feel *too* badly. i left before the tiger lillies played to get in line for david cross, and it just so happened i came in the nick of time. i was near the end of the lucky waiters, only having to wait an hour and a half to see some funny instead of three hours. and it was funny, but the first comedy acts i saw were funnier. he certainly emphasized the importance of context for me: he and his friends performed selected scenes from the vagina monologues, which he felt was pretentious bullshit based in embellished fantasy, a play that i had more or less appreciated when i saw it performed by a group of students on campus.
the rest of the evening i mostly hung out in the sky church, where i saw hana (pretty), the end of aveo's set, and the makers (woo, rawk!). i broke out after hana and tried to enjoy the dj competition, but, while the scratching and attitude was really fucking cool, there were too many pauses to dance and i couldn't tolerate just standing, so i left after a short while and grabbed a little food. i asked them to disregard the "includes chips" part of the meal, because i don't fucking like potato chips at all, they're not worth my fat and calories and heightened salt intake, but the guy threw them back on my plate at the end. whatever.
after dancing my ass off to the makers, i thought i would be tired and thought i might go back to jana's, but i was actually quite energized, so i headed to the stadium to see some of cake's big show. they are so not a stadium band, but the show was somewhat enjoyable anyway. i talked to a woman from bainbridge island via manhattan who loved bumbershoot.
and today i came home. and now i'm hungry again. and i need to pack for phx. and my grandparents are here. yippee.
whee!
