Hi guys. Labels are inconsistent right now. I guess there's a limit of 200 characters for labels, so I might have to pull all the artists and just leave venues. Bumbershoot, Day 3 is missing artists right now, as a result. I'll update this post with what I decide to do.
Update: I decided to remove all the labels for artists and only keep the venues, because those will get used more often.
Wow. Apparently I just really suck at updating this. Day three should have gone up yesterday morning. Sorry, folks.
The first act I saw was People Eating People. I guess it's one of those one person projects (like Smashing Pumpkins). It was actually really cool. She kind of reminded me of Ingrid Michaelson. Apparently the Zune Smart DJ disagrees.
Then I headed over to see JEFF the Brotherhood for a bit before BOAT. They were okay. They probably have some potential. They were very grunge. I wasn't personally a huge fan.
Since I was slightly bored, I walked into BOAT a little early. I saw some props and speech bubbles and was all excited it was going to be comedic, but then it wasn't. It was still pretty good music. I enjoyed it. I really didn't get the speech bubbles bit, though. They didn't really seem to have a point. Their banter was pretty amusing, on the other hand. They mentioned they had planned to go into the audience, but there was a barrier set up, and they were surprised the Bumbershoot clientele was so vicious they needed a barrier.
I saw a few minutes of The Whigs. They were pretty decent. Not really a whole lot else to say. Headed over to Greg Laswell after. I liked his music a bit better.
The real goal here was to get to the Garfunkel and Oates, David O'Doherty, and Nick Thune comedy show. Garfunkel and Oates were probably my least favorite of the three. I just felt kinda awkward through most of their set. All three comedians were very funny though, and it was a fun performance. I think my favorite was Nick Thune.
I was able to see Japandroids for a little bit before the other comedy show. I was really sad I had to leave their performance early because I really liked them. One more Canadian band I'm a fan of. I was also surprised that it was only a two-piece. I guess I hadn't really thought about it before.
Went to go see Laff Hole (the real site is broken, so this link is the best I got) after Japandroids. It was surprisingly empty, and through the first half I realized why. I was starting to regret leaving the Japandroids early for it, and then the last two comedians came on. They were really good. And then the final bit was Airpocalypse which was an air instrument hair cover band. It was pretty funny. Unfortunately I don't remember any of the comedians names.
I made my way over to Surfer Blood after that. They were also really good. The Broad Street stage was a good place to be on Monday.
Checked out Booker T. for a little bit, next. His music was interesting. It was a little more bluesy, and not at all bad, but I don't know if I could just listen to him. A lot of it was also covers. Since it was jazz type instruments, though, the rock covers had a very different feel to them, so I'm definitely glad I saw him.
Finished out the night with the Thermals. I was most excited for this on a friend's recommendation, with good reason apparently. The three-piece from Portland were very good, even if they did seem to talk over their music. Two things I didn't realize were that they were a three-piece and had a girl bassist, and both are rather inconsequential. At any rate, I enjoyed them enough to stay through the rain for their entire encore, and I'm glad I did because one of their encore songs was "My Name Is Jonas," which is probably the most fitting Weezer song, but I thought it was really funny that they played a Weezer song when probably the entire audience had seen Weezer the day before.
Oh, today was awesomeness. Even if it was way busier than it was yesterday.
Started off with Hey Marseilles. I hadn't actually heard their music before, so I didn't know what to expect. It was a really good mix of instruments, and I really enjoyed it. I tried to buy one of their CDs later, but they were apparently all sold out. It was crazy. And so packed, that it made more sense to find standing room in the beer garden than try to mush in with everyone standing in front of the Broad Street Stage.
After that I went and saw Crash Kings. I think they played a couple songs that weren't on their disc. They rock well, though, and their songs are just fun to hear. So that was also a good performance. Nothing really special to say about it, though, other than that this was also surprisingly packed. And that they finished out their (rather short) set by covering "War Pigs" :)
I made my way to the Redwood Plan from Crash Kings. I felt like I probably should have skipped them. I don't think I stayed for more than about 10-15 minutes. They were more electronic than I liked. They really didn't have much going for them.
I got a little break after that until the Bouncing Souls went on. I ran into a friend there that I was really surprised to see at a punk show, and lo and behold, she left after all of 5 minutes. I didn't stay much longer, either, as there's only so much punk one can take.
So I popped back into the EMP Sky Church stage for Slender Means, who unfortunately didn't have any CDs available. I really liked them. I don't really know what to compare them to. I guess I'd say they fit squarely under "indie rock."
When Slender Means was done, I walked over (and heard the end of the only song by the Bouncing Souls I actually know, whose name I can't actually remember right now) to Rise Against. I can't say their show was anything special. They even acknowledged that it's strange playing in an arena as a non-arena band. But it was still a really fun show. They had a great set, and they definitely were energetic and got the audience pumped up.
I left about fifteen minutes early to go watch Motion City Soundtrack, and regretted leaving early within minutes. I didn't miss much, and Rise Against was almost done anyway, so there was no value in going back, but Motion City Soundtrack was definitely more pop than I remembered, and the clientele was pretty homogeneous (pre-teens and high schoolers).
I went into the EMP hoping Fences was better. Their music was different, but I didn't enjoy them much more. They were very mellow. I could listen to them as background music, but as a live band, they weren't very exciting, so I came back out and watched the last couple songs of Motion City Soundtrack's set, including the only song I recognized by them, "The Future Freaks Me Out".
I was really disappointed that the Dandy Warhols were at the exact same time as Weezer. Whoever scheduled that must have been drunk. I ended up just watching Weezer. That was a great decision. I don't know what I missed, but what I saw was definitely amazing. They played a really good set list (mostly old stuff), and the new songs they played, they made a lot of fun, what with Rivers Cuomo running around into the stands for "Pork and Beans" and all. They even had beach balls for the audience during (and after) "Island in the Sun." The best part, though, definitely had to be the cover of MGMT's "Kids." Most importantly, halfway through, Cuomo put on a wig and sang some of Lady Gaga's "Poker Face." That was definitely the most interesting set I've seen. There was just a lot of juxtaposition I wouldn't have expected.
Overall, a good day, and I'm definitely looking forward to tomorrow, though I'll probably see fewer musical acts tomorrow since I'll try to hit up some comedy.
Whoo! Bumbershoot kicked off pretty awesomely. Started the day off with the Submarines at the Broad Street Stage. I was really sad that I only got to see 15 minutes of their (surprisingly short) set because the will call line for tickets took me an hour to get through, but from what I saw, it was a good performance :) It was actually a lot more crowded than I expected it to be.
I did miss the Maldives because the game was finishing up and then we had to pay, but I made it back in time to see Civil Twilight at Center Stage. This was probably the best act I saw today. Not only were they awesome, but there was a group of people that brought a pink unicorn tied to a stick and they were waving it around. It was pretty amusing. That group were, as a result, really easy to pick out at the Mainstage acts, too.
Like the Decemberists, who were the first Mainstage act of the evening. I didn't really know what to expect from them. I will say I enjoyed the end of the performance better. It seemed to shift over the course of the hour from folk-y to more rock-y. I also can definitely say I enjoyed it.
After the Decemberists, Neko Case played. I also had no clue what to expect from her. I ended up really liking it. Her banter was kinda weird (bases?), but the music was a very good mix of folk and rock, definitely leaning towards rock.
I left the Neko Case performance slightly early so I could go see the Cute Lepers at the EMP Sky Church. That show was just fun and amusing. Their music wasn't exactly good, but it was definitely entertaining. It was a cross between 50s rock ("Great Balls of Fire") and 90s ska punk (stuff like Reel Big Fish) including the obligatory girls with tambourines (50s) and Oi!s (90s). I guess they kind of reminded me of Elvis Costello. It was just really fun to watch them; even if the audience was belligerent, it wasn't an annoying belligerent, but an amusing one: no crazy moshing or anything, just dancing around. On top of that, Sky Church might be my favorite venue at Bumbershoot. It's indoors, so the acoustics are slightly different, and this particular one is better than some of the other indoor Bumbershoot venues that aren't actually set up for concerts, which helps.
Closed out the night with the beginning of Bob Dylan's set. After all, if you're going to be right there for an icon, you have to go see them. Especially when they're as old as Dylan. You could hear the age in his voice. We left well before the end of the set, though, because we were both tired and neither of us is that interested in folk. I'm sure if I enjoyed Dylan more, I'd have loved seeing him play.
Posts
All Comments
