First off, part one is here in case you missed it.

Friday September 3

And a happy birthday to the daughter too. We started the day, as with the past few, by having a light breakfast in the room. Then we were outta there, to walk a few blocks to the monorail station. We took the two-minute train to the Seattle Center, because it was the day before the Bumbershoot Music and Arts festival. The day before? So what, you say? Ha. Yeah. Well, they open up the visual art exhibits a day early (for one thing), so we got a great chance to check all the art a day early before all the crowds were there. And it was totally great, just like every year. After a while of this we finished and then picked up our Bumbershoot Gold Passes. Yep, we bought some VIP treatment but not the Platinum. That takes the big money!

Art, gold passes, monorail, wow doesn’t that make you hungry? Well it did us! A few blocks away was Pacliacci Pizza so we stopped by for a slice. We actually had a two-for-one coupon from last year and they honored it no problem. The pizza was pretty good too. Then it was across the street to Easy Street Records. We shopped quite a while and found some CDs that we absolutely positively needed wanted. Same old story for us! After, we took the monorail back to the hotel so we could drop off the CDs, passes, and other stuff.

Then back to the Seattle Center to check out the preparations for the next day’s start of the Festival. Almost here, after all this waiting! We hung out at the International Fountain for a bit, which is always great, and then it was time for the Film Festival preview. As part of the Bumbershoot Festival there is a Film Festival and if you RSVP early enough you get to go to the free preview on Friday night. We saw about six or so short films, maybe ninety minutes or so total. These are always interesting, sometimes strange and sometimes funny and sometimes touching. But always fun to see.

By then we were hungry again. Lucky for us, a couple blocks away was the Bamboo Garden, a totally vegetarian restaurant with hundreds of items on the menu. As a long-time vegetarian, it’s often frustrating to go to a restaurant and only have one or two choices. But not here. We can eat anything. And so we did. And then we were full. We caught the monorail back to the hotel and started studying the schedule for the next day’s opening of the Festival. There are some 15 or so stages and venues all going at the same time for about 12 hours each day, so you have to make some hard choices. But it’s all good. So we got a little sleep, with visions of Bumbershoots dancing in our heads.

Saturday September 4

Festival. Day one. No need for breakfast yet, we took the monorail to the Seattle Center and went in the through the Gold Pass entrance. First we grabbed a couple comedy passes for the day. You can get passes for one comedy show each day, and/or else you can stand in line hoping that there is room. We tend to like a sure thing. Got it. And there was this too: we had also RSVP’d quickly a while back for the KEXP “secret Bumbershoot lounge” and managed to get tickets to six shows there! This is another stage at the festival but not one that too many people get to go to. It’s small and intimate, maybe a hundred and fifty or so people, maybe even less. So we picked up our tickets to those shows, which we saw at various times on all three Festival days. More about these shows later. We ate some food in the Gold/Platinum hospitality area then went to the Starbucks lounge. Why? Well, Starbucks allowed people to RSVP early (sound like a familiar theme?) for a pass that would get you into their free lounge all three days and while there you get free Starbucks drinks. Anything they had was free. Hard to argue with that, huh?

For the first actual event of the festival, Petra wanted to see a dance performance called Ricochet so she went there. I went to a different stage and saw an LA band, The Submarines. They had a catchy “indie” sound and I watched most of their set. Walking around after, I caught a couple songs by Idiot Pilot, who I didn’t like at all (screamo and not interesting) and Star Anna (Americana, with a nice voice, but the songs didn’t hold my interest). So I met back up with Petra and we went to our day’s comedy show, It was called “Never Not Funny” and it was amusing. Not gut-busting laughter but still good. Then we headed to our first show in the “secret stage”. It was The Ravonettes, a band from Denmark. I had liked a Christmas song by them and now this show did not disappoint at all. They were really good in a short set. They were playing a longer set at a non-secret stage later in the day, but this short set was a really nice taste of their music. Their mixture of psych guitar and smooth male/female vocals was great and we both liked them a lot.

Next we went to the Main Stage to see the second half of the set by The Decemberists. I like this band a lot and they sounded really good live too. Then we walked to a different stage and saw most of a set by Bob Schneider. Neither of us had heard much about him but he was good, Petra liked him quite a bit and I enjoyed the set too. We tried to see current buzz band Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes but got there after they started and the crowd was just too big. Of course, we were eating here and there during the day too, in case you were wondering about that. After all it is a festival with great food and the hospitality lounge had snacks and food all day too. Next it was back to the main stage for a few songs by Neko Case, who we had seen there a few years ago too. She has a nice voice but we were actually getting a good spot for the day’s headliner Bob Dylan. You might have heard of him, hahaha. He’s a legend and I really like his 60s and 70s stuff but had never seen him live. Well, now I have. And I don’t need to do that again. I heard people say he was great that night but IMHO he was certainly not. His band was good but he spat out the songs and growled the lyrics so that almost no words were understandable and the songs were reworked to be almost unrecognizable. It was a major disappointment and we left halfway through. That was plenty. Seriously, his lyrics and songs are his claim to fame, but those things weren’t around that night so we headed out to see someone different. Petra and our friend Mama O went to see Ozamatli and I went to see the rest of the evening set by The Raveonettes. Sure, Dylan was a disappointment to all of us, but the rest of the day was great! Day one was a big success for us! And so we headed back to the hotel to look at the schedule for tomorrow’s day two and to get some sleep.

More about days two and three soon…

Pictures coming soon too…

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