More on Bumbershoot Monday

As previously mentioned, Monday at Bumbershoot was heavily skewed towards the alt-country side of things. We're not sure if that's good programming or bad programming. On the one hand, if you're way into alt-country, just attend that one day of the festival and you're all set; on the other hand, you've got some tough choices to make among Blitzen Trapper, Langhorne Slim, Two Gallants, the Maldives, and Old 97s. We managed to catch some of all of the above, which ranged from alt-country to straight-up country to country-twinged blues rock. The diversity of sound was overwhelming.

Luckily, yesterday also offered Bellingham's Black Eyes and Neckties, who managed to give one of their typical over-the-top horrorshow stage productions, even with their lead singer in a wheelchair with a broken foot. There was also Feral Children at the Sky Church--the Animal Collective comparisons are dead on, except these guys actually sound good live. With enough melodies and sing-along vocals to keep things interesting (not to mention pedals galore), the Sarathan five-piece put on one of the best sets at this year's Bumbershoot. From there, we had nowhere else to go but the Northwest Court, where we took it down a notch with the mostly-seated crowd for the dreampop of Arthur and Yu.

Then it was back to the Sky Church for Velella Velella, who put in the effort, despite having such a tough time slot, up against Superchunk at Memorial Stadium and Battles at the Broad Street stage. Indeed, there was a large, dude-heavy crowd for Battles, who got big cheers for drummer John Stanier and his mighty elevated cymbal, though of course, the biggest cheers were saved for the band's post-futuristic anthem of the impending apocalypse "Atlas." And then time to get swoony with Norwegian singer-songwriter virtuoso Sondre Lerche before getting the hell out of dodge--just in time to avoid Xavier Rudd and his goddamn didgeridoos.

"Freedom Rings in with a Hug" courtesy of Seattlest Flickr pool member TheQ!