Concert review
Sometimes it’s the little surprises that make you smile the widest.
Stepping out of a capacity crowd at all-ages bastion Vera Project and walking past a runway fashion show by Capitol Hill streetwear boutique Mediums Collective and around the International Fountain, I made my way to the KEXP/Fountain stage for one of Bumbershoot’s more rarefied performances.
Renowned indie folkies Andrew Bird and Madison Cunningham were giving just their second duo performance together after debuting their interpretations of Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks’ 1973 album “Buckingham Nicks” at Newport Folk Festival in July. The all-star roots duo was gracefully propelled by Seattle’s own Ted Poor — the jazz drummer extraordinaire, frequent Bird collaborator and University of Washington associate professor who guided the band through a fiddling “Don’t Let Me Down Again” with a tightly intricate gallop.
Seattle culture is all over the place at Seattle Center this weekend as the second year of the refreshed Bumbershoot gets underway, even popping up in places you may not have expected. Opening day drew more than 13,000 attendees, said organizers, who anticipate a total of nearly 30,000 over the course of the weekend.
The beloved music and arts festival returned from a three-year hiatus in 2023 under new leadership, New Rising Sun, who pledged to make the Labor Day weekend tradition a celebration of Pacific Northwest culture and elevate artists of all stripes.
Last year’s comeback music lineup was a locavore statement, with homegrown stars like Sleater-Kinney, Band of Horses and Sunny Day Real Estate dotting the top of the card — a feat that’s difficult to replicate year after year. In Year 2 for the new crew, much of the hometown talent took the festival’s four music stages earlier in the day Saturday, with Seattle favorites Kassa Overall, Chastity Belt and R&B standout Parisalexa performing under the afternoon sun.
But even some of the nonlocals felt a little bit Seattle for the day.
“Meet me back in a Seattle bookstore, down the stairs in the poetry aisle,” Hurray for the Riff Raff’s Alynda Segarra coolly sang from the Mural Amphitheatre stage, tweaking the line in their set-closing “Ogalalla” for the local crowd. Despite their New Orleans roots, the acclaimed folk rockers’ twangy riffs felt like they could have been plucked right off the Tractor Tavern’s walls, as if they’d been part of the Ballard scenery for years.
California-formed headliners Pavement brought more tangible PNW credentials, as frontman Stephen Malkmus is a longtime Portlander. “I saw The Black Crowes here, it was [expletive] sick,” the oft-sarcastic singer/guitarist noted at one point after a little refresher on some Bumbershoot history. “It might have been over at the Environmental Catastrophe Arena or whatever.”
The influential indie rockers are on the back end of a hotly anticipated reunion swing that began in 2022, and Saturday’s abbreviated festival slot proved even more savory than their Paramount Theatre gig two years ago. It was also a homecoming of sorts for Pavement guitarist Scott Kannberg, a onetime Seattleite who shouted out Maple Leaf, taking the stage a day after his 58th birthday.
“I had many birthdays in Seattle. I don’t remember many of them,” Kannberg dad-joked before the slacker rock heroes frolicked through a lovably shaggy “Harness Your Hopes,” marked by Malkmus’ absurdist stream of consciousness lyricism.
Now in its second post-overhaul year, Bumbershoot is (re)establishing itself as Seattle’s ultimate choose-your-own-adventure festival between its four music stages, visual art and photography exhibitions, comedy and fashion showcases, and much more scattered around the Seattle Center campus. With all due respect to the frenetic stage-hopping pace of Capitol Hill Block Party, Seattle music’s party of the summer, the range of cultural outcomes is exponentially wider at the more intergenerational Bumbershoot, so much so that almost everyone’s Bumbershoot experiences will be different.
Taking a break from the music, a small Saturday evening crowd circled around Seattle’s beloved break dancing crew Massive Monkees who performed in the Recess District, Bumbershoot’s hub for the athletic “arts” (think skateboarding, wrestling, double Dutch jump ropers).
After Bumbershoot’s 2023 edition felt a little light on hip-hop, organizers — including Chris Porter, the festival’s longtime music booker during the One Reel years, who joined the New Rising Sun squad this year — ensured the genre was better represented. And it was a hit.
Saturday sets from contemporary street-rap favorite Freddie Gibbs and throwback ‘90s stalwarts Cypress Hill were two of the highest attended performances on opening day. The gruff-voiced Gibbs sailed through a cool-as-ever set drawing heavily from his soul-inflected “Alfredo” collaboration with heavyweight producer The Alchemist. Taking the same Fisher Green Pavilion stage an hour later, Cypress Hill’s wired West Coast spin on boom bap ignited a ready-to-party crowd after the sun set.
Bumbershoot continues Sunday with James Blake, Courtney Barnett, Thee Sacred Souls and more.
