Previewing Sunday at Bumbershoot

Like many of you, I've spent the last few months loudly declaring this year's Bumbershoot as one to miss after skimming the list of lackluster headliners. In recent weeks, I've turned around on the event. Yes, it's crowded. Yes, some of the headliners are a complete snoozefest. But it's still one of the best large-scale events in Seattle, and I'd be a fool to ignore it out of my own elitism. Plus, there's funnel cake! I decided I'd at least check out one day, and Sunday's the day.

Sunday's musical lineup (as with the other days) is solid if you look past the names in the largest type. First off, there's Vivian Girls. Between their dates here and this year's SXSW (where they played an amazing 18 shows in 3 days), I've seen Vivian Girls plenty of times, and only once been disappointed (stink-eye for you, sound guy at Neumos ). Somewhere in their hectic touring schedule they've managed to finish up their sophomore album, so this date promises a lot of new material.

I'll also be scratching my indie-rock itch with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and locals Sleepy Eyes of Death, with the latter promising the debut of a new song (side note: if you haven't bought Dark Signals Remixed, SEoD's recent remix album, you should).  In a more soulful vein, I'm looking forward to Roy Ayers and Raphael Saadiq, representing both classic and neo-soul. It's a bummer to miss Mayer Hawthorne (playing today) and Black Joe Lewis & the Honeybears (playing Monday), but such is life.  Hopefully they'll both be back soon.

Between those bands I'm also hoping to catch some of the other festivities as well (and not just the food). As with every year, I'll be fighting my impulse to buy everything at Flatstock, and the Seattle-Moscow Poster Show sounds incredibly compelling. I've got high hopes for big laughs from David Cross and Aziz Ansari as well. It's certainly going to be a long day, underscoring how wrong I was to dismiss this year's Bumbershoot.