For completion’s sake, enclosed please find my rundown of Bumbershoot’s musical highlights for the final day, Monday September 2.
Yeah, coverage of a live music event nearly two weeks after its finish is the journalistic equivalent of hauling out a good loaf of bread that’s past its pull date. Pretend like this loaf’s been removed from the freezer, several slices have been toasted to a tasty golden brown, and we’ve thrown on some fresh butter and fresh-minced garlic.
Day 3 Musical Highlights:
The Best: Another pair of 1990s-vintage alt-rock acts, Superchunk and Redd Kross, showed the kids how it’s done with winning sets of high-strung taut indie rock and hair-flipping power-pop brilliance, respectively; Mexican band Kinky laid out lean dance grooves infused with mariachi and salsa touches that totally took me by surprise; Red Baraat’s combination of North Indian Bhangra music, jazz, and potent funk likewise blew minds (and shook booties); Baroness managed to fit dense psychedelia and cinematic prog-rock into their fiercely metallic set; roots-noir troubadour Mark Pickerel and his Praying Hands offered a mesmerizing contrast to the blazing sun with gorgeously dark new material; spidery lead singer Bradford Cox made a magnetic focal point for Deerhunter‘s hypnotic shoegaze-tinged performance; and Seattle blue-eyed soul boy Allen Stone proved that he’s evolved into a showman of epic proportions judging from his buoyant (and packed) Tunein Stage show.
The Really Good: Seattle’s most rocking roots act, The Maldives, proved that they’re genetically incapable of delivering anything less than a solid set; Red Jacket Mine spawned fond memories of 70s pop acts like The Raspberries and Harry Nilsson; and The Joy Formidable sent Bumbershoot out with an anthemic, exhilarating final set.
The Rest: Hmm…Loved (or really, really liked) everyone I saw that day. Go figure.
Crap! I Missed It: alt-j’s Mainstage Bow; and what was surely a terrific set by Seattle roots-pop dynamos Ivan and Alyosha.
We now rejoin the middle of September, already in progress…