First, the sorta not-great news: Version 2.0 of Bumbershoot, AEG Edition, remains as much a work in progress as last year’s Version 1.0. Festival logistics were alternately more regimented and more slapdash than in years past, resulting in more than a few grumblings from press and civilians alike. And the thinner early-day crowds seemed like an early indicator that Bumbershoot’s stratospherically-high price point might finally be hitting critical mass.
Then again, crowds did fill in more as the day went on. And the rain gods (mostly) spared the first day of Bumbershoot 2016, letting loose with the most concentrated local downpours a good three hours before the festival gates opened, and confining their appearances during the festival proper to a few scattered spits’ worth of precipitation.
But I’m not here to talk about the weather, or about Bumbershoot’s administrative and logistic strengths and weaknesses (yet). As is customary from this end, it was the music that mattered most. And damned if it didn’t deliver, solidly.
The Great: After their exhaustingly hyperactive set at the Starbucks Stage, I’ve come to the conclusion that local trio Naked Giants are an anime version of a garage rock band—a three-piece hurtling themselves into every slashed-out chord, caveman drum fill, and strangled moaning squall of guitar feedback with so much spastic energy, you’ll swear someone drew ‘em. All that, and they know how to construct great, primal rock songs that merit the pinball-machine-on-tilt delivery. It’s still too early to call Best Live Rock Show of Bumbershoot 2016, but that doesn’t mean it’s not tempting to do so here.
Naked Giants were the first of several Day One acts who hammered home the difference a great live presence can make between a good band and a great one. I’ve always enjoyed recently-relocated locals Iska Dhaaf on record, but it took their live showing at the Memorial Stadium yesterday afternoon to really drive home their brilliance for me. They traffic in a style of music—alternately lush/sparse, twitchy, nervously-hooky British-influenced guitar pop—that’s often delivered with too-cool-for-school detachment. Lead singer/guitarist Nathan Quiroga blew that notion out of the water from second one, scaling stacks, speakers, and stage barriers while lending possessed-shaman intensity to his vocal delivery. Keyboardist/drummer/co-founder Benjamin Verdoes offered a more concentrated, insular (but no less intense) presence behind his synthesizers.
There will always be a place in my heart for energetically-played and sung Beatles/Cheap Trick fueled power pop, and Seattle four-piece STAG, a sort or mini-supergroup including singer Steve Mack of That Petrol Emotion and Alcohol Funnycar guitarist Ben London, delivered the crunchy-sweet guitar hooks and melodic-but-gutsy vocals right during their Starbucks Stage set.
You can pretty much expect most hip hop shows to be pretty spring-loaded, but Tyler, the Creator blew the top of my head off with his Memorial Stadium set, prowling, bounding, and stumbling across the stage with rock-star presence to burn. The chest-rattling beats underscoring his delivery sounded like one giant punching another giant in the ribs.
I also finally, definitively got Father John Misty yesterday after his great Memorial Stadium set. Another stage-commanding presence, Misty/Tillman delivered his arch take on Americana music—Harry Nilsson and Gram Parsons by way of David Bowie—with performance-art virtuosity, humor, and just enough genuine gravity to stick to your ribs.
It’s a little bit of a bummer that Bumbershoot 2016’s quota of true balls-out, hair-flipping hard rock acts is so emaciated this year. Then again Chevy Metal, the cover-band side project of Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins, turned out to be more than willing to singlehandedly pick up the slack. They delivered the rock (with a capital R-O-C-K) in spades, diving with arena-ham gusto through deep album-rock cuts as well as head-banging Van Halen (Diamond Dave-era, natch), Motley Crue, and David Bowie hits. Hawkins busted out a singing voice that was equal parts Bowie-resonant, goofily cartoonish, and oddly soulful, and as a drummer he’s surely The Muppet Show’s Animal come to life—right down to the King Kong skin-pounding, shaggy mane, and mile-wide set of grinning choppers.
Finally, fast-rising pop diva Halsey likewise converted this (relatively) uninitiated skeptic with her assertive brand of mainstream dance music. Don’t let the fact that she’s movie-star gorgeous (see enclosed visual evidence) put you off: There are a lot of people mining this particular vein, but Halsey stands head-and-shoulders above most of her peers with a combination of smarts, vocal power, a sense of controlled dynamics, and sheer arena-filling charisma.
The Really Good: Recent EMP Sound Off! winners Cosmos are really onto something with their jazz-shaded, surprisingly complex weld of hip hop and soul, and if frontman Teron Bell is still finding his way to a distinctive (and fully on-pitch) singing voice, he’s a magnetic figure onstage equipped with a confident and memorable rap delivery. New York-based, Canada-cultivated two-piece Bob Moses woulda likely been among The Great but for some technical issues that seemed to sorta take the wind out of lead singer Tom Howie’s sails. That said, their intelligent and dusky electric/organic hybrid was as atmospheric as it was danceable and sounded great. And I don’t really hear a huge amount to distinguish Norwegian DJ/Producer Kygo’s brand of EDM from any of his sufficiently propulsive and sonically-immersive kin, but bear in mind I’m really damned old, and even I’ve gotta admit that the guy’s audio-visual extravaganza made for a head-spinningly immersive live experience.
The Rest: Go figure. I loved, or really liked, everything I took in last night.
Crap! I Missed It: The electro-soul magnificence of Fly Moon Royalty; Michael Franti and Spearhead’s open-hearted conscious party; DoNormaal’s much-buzzed-about rap/beat poetry.
