For 40 years now, the zebra-tending folks at the Woodland Park Zoo have trotted out well-received lineups for ZooTunes, its beloved summer concert series. Each year there was something among the roots-leaning roster that caught my eye, even if it never really felt like I was the target audience for the laid-back, getcha-home-for-bedtime concerts on the lawn.
Last year’s was different.
Scrolling through the lineup when it landed in my inbox, I became more delightfully surprised the further down I got. There was contemporary Americana rocker Jason Isbell, one of the great songwriters of our time, somewhat in keeping with the zoo’s folkier tendencies. Then it got stranger.
Patti Smith, the “godmother of punk”? OK, cool. Au courant indie rocker Japanese Breakfast, paired with PNW greats Built to Spill? Nice “get.” Irreverent Sub Pop rocker Father John Misty with Seattle’s experimental rap futurists Shabazz Palaces? Sold. Freaky psych-rock weirdos The Flaming Lips? Are you sure?
I wasn’t the only one who noticed the break in ZooTunes tradition. The “dramatic” shift also caught the eye of Seattle music vet Ben London, who runs the vital musician-supporting nonprofit Sonic Guild Seattle.
“Part of me was like ‘Wow, Flaming Lips at the zoo. Who knew?’” London said. “I’ve got nothing against Lyle Lovett or the Indigo Girls or that sort of stuff. But all of a sudden the lineups started feeling [more] like the KEXP playlist than, I don’t know, the NPR playlist.”
Put another way, suddenly there were more indie-attuned millennials and Gen Xers virtually queuing up for tickets to ZooTunes, a grassy, early-show venue unlike their usual natural habitat at say, a Marymoor Park concert. That deviation from past booking tendencies continued this year and, unlike a Malayan tapir, isn’t confined to the zoo.
After checking my family calendar and napkin-mathing babysitter costs, last year’s unexpected lineup glee abruptly vanished as I was confronted by something far more unsettling than the cost of convincing someone to watch my adorable demon spawn for a few hours.
“Wait a minute,” I thought, as my wishful summer planning spiraled into a brief existential crisis. “Is ZooTunes getting cooler or am I just getting older?”
Turns out it was a little of both.
The ZooTunes refresh was a conscious decision, pitched by a third-party booker and approved by the zoo’s concert manager Romy Brock, to expand the series’ audience. And boy, did it work.
ZooTunes shows have long been a hot summer ticket, but last year completely sold out and the 2024 season looks poised to do the same. The only general admission tickets left this summer are for U.K. indie-popster The Japanese House on Aug. 12. (For Decemberists die-hards, VIP passes are still available to the Portland indie-rock pillars’ two-night stand July 31-Aug. 1.)
Other buzzy rock gigs at the zoo this summer included hometown heroes Car Seat Headrest, playing their first show in two years, back in June, plus August dates with acclaimed folk rocker Waxahatchee and a killer double bill of Alvvays — a Grammy-nominated Canadian band with a Seattle rhythm section — and mighty New Zealand rockers The Beths.
Beyond ZooTunes, there’s an even more pronounced vibe shift across the Seattle area’s midsize outdoor concert venues, which include Chateau Ste. Michelle, Marymoor Park and Seattle Theatre Group’s new Remlinger Farms in Carnation.
Like ZooTunes, Chateau Ste. Michelle’s wildly popular concert series turns 40 this summer. As it too enters middle age, the Woodinville winery is inviting younger audiences to its bucolic environs, which have typically catered more to adult contemporary listeners who can afford to splurge on a bottle of reserve (on top of the $20-$40 parking fees).
With its concert series powered by Live Nation, this summer, Chateau Ste. Michelle welcomes artists like newly minted pop star Tate McRae — a Canadian who, until this month, wasn’t old enough to drink in the States — former Sub Pop breakout Orville Peck and Gen Z favorite Beabadoobee, a TikTok-boosted bedroom pop/slacker rock artist who deftly repurposes aesthetics from the ’90s, a decade she wasn’t alive for.
To be clear, there are still plenty of shows at both venues serving the devout followings each has built over the years, with The Roots making their annual return to the zoo and Ste. Michelle regulars like Lyle Lovett, Chris Isaak and king of crooners John Legend heading back to Woodinville. Still, venue brass’s willingness to break their respective molds shows a desire to expand their audiences and court music lovers across more generational lines.
“I watch it [as] a fan as much as I do for business reasons,” said Adam Zacks, STG’s programming chief. Zacks and STG now have a comparable summer music series to book at Remlinger. This inaugural season, with artists ranging from new wave greats Blondie to new-school indie-pop favorite Goth Babe left on the docket, is a bit of an experiment figuring out what fits at the first-year venue.
It’s common for some artists to rotate through the summer venues, covering different parts of the metro on subsequent tours. (After playing Marymoor in 2019 and the zoo last year, Jason Isbell slides over to Chateau Ste. Michelle July 16-17.) But this year at least, it feels like the big-name indie and pop-leaning tours that have been more synonymous with Marymoor Park in recent years are scattered among Remlinger, ZooTunes and Chateau Ste. Michelle, with the parkside Redmond venue leaning more heavily on legacy acts like Melissa Etheridge and Jewel, Slash and reggae stalwarts Ziggy Marley and The Legendary Wailers.
“It’s been very interesting to me,” Zacks continued. “The age group that was core for the winery is beginning to age out of the stuff that worked in the past and so it’s only natural that the new crop would come up. It is kind of fascinating to watch and in some ways predictable and in some ways very much not.”
But back to my personal crises, exaggerated for effect: Sometimes music has a funny way of reminding me of my age in one moment, while making me completely oblivious to it the next. At this point, I’ll barely notice being the only nonchaperone dad type among a sea of teenage Olivia Rodrigo fans, yet bristle a little when a young producer is flabbergasted when I recall seeing an early Toro y Moi tour not even 10 years earlier. (For the record, it was 2011. Not exactly like seeing The Rolling Stones in ’68.)
Part of what makes our cultural touchstones like a beloved summer concert series or a longstanding music festival interesting and enduring is watching how they evolve over time. We grow up alongside them, sometimes age in and out of them, and hopefully share them with other generations. It’s a seemingly little thing that can help bind a community together if we’re not too curmudgeonly about it. (I say this as someone who once thought harder than anyone ever should about whether I could passably incorporate “mid” into my vocabulary.)
Now entering its 26th year, Capitol Hill Block Party’s annual lineup announcement has become Seattle music’s unofficial age test, with the number of artists you recognize indicative of how many trips you’ve made around the sun. This year the party of the summer is led by R&B-flavored bedroom pop darling Still Woozy, soulful alt-popper Remi Wolf, electronic heavyweight Kaytranada and breakout pop star Chappell Roan.
“In the same way that I feel more connected to the ZooTunes thing, I think for many people in my generation, and maybe yours as well, you look at the Block Party lineup now and you’re like, ‘I don’t know who most of these people are,’” said London, 57. “Some people in my age group, around my socials, complain about that. I’m like ‘You weren’t going to go anyway. Why do you care whether you know them or not?’ … The younger folks know exactly who those people are and that’s who they want to see.”
The Block Party posters don’t read like Greek to me. (Hey, they pay me to know this stuff, after all.) But every year my choice of festival footwear gets a little more sensible.
With any luck, in 15 years I’ll be standing next to my kids at 10th Avenue and Pike Street for CHBP or out on the ZooTunes lawn listening to some third-wave hyperpop revivalist they put me on to. Hopefully, I won’t be too much grayer.
