Friday’s Bumberfun

Were you at Bumbershoot on Friday? We were. Here is what we saw…

1) The Perfect Sized Crowd - enough people to make people watching interesting, but not so crowded that we were fighting tides of people around the corners. There were hippy folks, beer bellied guys with big beards and short, teens and 20ish-30ish hipsters of every subculture, families with fancy strollers or middle school kids just psyched to be able to get $10 from Dad and wander around with his friends for a couple hours.

2) Altered States of Funk (Bumbrella Stage) - This Seattle based band got themselves a little crowd of Funk Soldiers out there dancing on a Friday afternoon. Hear them around town rappin’, funkin’ and groovin’,

3) The Donnas (Main Stage) - Shiny MTV Punky girls influenced by the Go-Gos. It’s cool when there is melodic ROCKIN’.

4) A STUPID idea - Maybe someone thought that the wristbands were passé or inefficient, but now we have poker chips. Seems like an OK idea, but there is only one person that does the stamping. Stamping? Oh yeah, you gotta turn your chip in when you go in to the concert. Then you need a hand stamp to get back in. Unfortunately, there is another line for this inside the concert. Poor planning. I predict that this is gonna be a problem later.

5) Skerik’s Syncopated Taint Septet (Bumbrella Stage) - Instrumental jazz funk with 6 horns and some keys. These guys play around Seattle, so if you like jammin’ to the “never-ending song,” check em out when you can. According to their website, they dig the Owl and Thistle.

6) Baby Gramps and the Kitchen Syncopators (Busker Stage) - Baby Gramps has been a fixture at many outdoor festivals and street corners for years now. This little old man with his frenetic movements, huge beard, and national steel guitar does some lightning fast fingerpickin’ to compliment his Popeye sounding voice. Today he was backed by the Kitchen Syncopators, a jug band that added a welcome backbeat to the acquired taste that is Baby Gramps. These guys play around the NW and northern California frequently, and they are worth a night out of their own

7) Mavis Staples (Blues Stage) - Soul and gospel legend and a 1999 inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as part of the Staples Singers, she sang the day into night with the smell of Cajun BBQ wafting through the air.

8) M. Ward (Backyard Stage) - Dave Matthews sounding Portland native with a slant toward blues sprinkled with indie rock and Bob Dylan. A nice mix of mellow quietness and high energy. Our favorite song, “Helicopter,” opened the set, which we thought was a cover tune of an old Bob Dylan song when we first heard it on KEXP. This guy seemed to sound better on paper than live though. Maybe we are just tired of the Dave Matthews, David Gray, John Mayer, Jason Mraz, Jack Johnsoning, of music.

9) Maktub (Bumbrella Stage) - We have been fans of Reggie and the boys for years now. They certainly get people dancing, and these local boys (http://www.maktub.com/content/view/110/208/) drew the biggest crowd we saw on Friday. The song “Just Like Murder,” is a great “simmer” song (start soft and simmer to a crescendo). These guys keep working hard, and we wish them the best as always. We’ll just ignore their most recent album that was too “pop rock” for our taste.

10) Beer gardens - While paying $5-$6 a beer is always painful, it is certainly appreciated that the beer gardens were moved so that you can actually see and hear the stage while having a cold one.

11) Shout outs to N’Awlins - Almost every band mentioned New Orleans and the insane post-apocolyptic atmosphere that exists down there. The one that stuck in our mind was Reggie Watts’ suggestion that people wear Mardi Gras beads as a sign to show support for the efforts down there…and of course donate money to one or more of the relief funds.

12) A little disappointment - Because there are always so many things to see at Bumbershoot, there is always 1-2 bands that we want to see but didn’t. Friday, that band was Smoosh - the two local teenage girls who are showing that not all tweens and early teens have bad taste in music.

That was Friday! We will bring more from each day Bumbershoot!!