Bumber-Poop
The City Comes Alive… with my lovely lady humps.
What has happened to Bumbershoot? I’m sure all of you fellow fans were waiting with bated breath for the big announcement on July 9th. And then we got it… Fergie. Are you friggen kidding me? Fergie? The crack head with the lady lumps. Shit. This is a new low for the festival that seems to be on an ever increasing downward spiral. I mean hell, Fergie topped the Rolling Stone most annoying. #1 on their list AND mine beating out both Celine Dion and Nickleback (which I’ll get to later). Not that the rest of the “lineup” is much better. They even dropped the Rat City Roller Girls which were worth the price of admission alone last year. How much time do they really expect me to spend in the beer garden… or is that their plan all along?
For the second year in a row, I’m much more excited for the Capitol Hill Block Party’s stellar lineup featuring the likes of Spoon, Blue Scholars and Silversun Pickups. And this is a neighborhood event without having to outsource their promotion to AEG… the bummer that is Bumbershoot’s new promotion agent/partner. But we DO get Crowded House… remember them?
AEG was signed on this year to help bring in the big names and the big crowds. Yay. Now I know that stuffing a festival with Indie and blues bands won’t bring in the kind of crowds needed to pay for the venue and acts (not to mention lining AEG’s pockets) even though Cap Hill has been doing it year after year. Looking at their resume, I’ve seen them bragging about some big bookings they’re proud enough of to put into print. We’re talking about the BIG names like Nickleback (Deathbus), Celine Dion (DEATHBUS!!) and Yanni (just strap his lame ass to the roof). Not that AEG is all bad. They ARE responsible for Coachella which hosted the likes of Arcade Fire, The Black Keys, and Brother Ali to name just a few. It’s a festival I’ve always felt Bumbershoot was aspiring towards but failed sadly.
Now having spewed all this nonsense, I’m most probably still going to attend. There ARE some gems to pluck from the turds. Saturday’s headline is Kings of Leon with BRMC opening. Both bands’ latest releases are incredible. Also look for local greats the Blakes, The Cops, and North Twin. And others such as Rodrigo y Gabriella and The Gourds.
Popularity: 7%
hehehehehehe. love the spirited blog postings from you. Rarely do I listen to music at bumbershoot. I’m usually getting drunk in the beer garden and flirting with boys. That’s always worth the price of admission for me!
Seems like seattle would be the leader of all these music festivals… but bumbershoot always comes in last place. Instead I rely on ACL (2 weeks after bumbershoot) Amazing music, no lines, perfect weather and lots of fun. Oh, and the margaritas…
Yeah, I’m probably going to just get hammered in the garden as well and then try throwing dung over the stadium wall and onto Fergie’s head. Just like a drunken monkey.
ACL=Austin City Limits. If you have a chance, I highly recommend it!
Here’s a sample of who’s going to be there:
The White Stripes, My Morning jacket, bloc party, arctic monkeys, wilco, the killers, clap your hands say yeah, gotan project, spoon, pete yorn, ghostland observatory, peter bjorn and john, yo la tengo, rodrigo y gabriela, steve earl, devotchka, amy winehouse, LCD soundsystem, kaiser cheifs, the list goes on and on and on.
And you can see ANYONE you want. like i said, no stupid lines like at bumbershoot.
They dropped Roller Girls? WTF?
I understand the having to stock the roster with national acts that will draw in the yay-hoos from the suburbs but this festival should be about the local color and culture from the 206.
Boo.
That having been said, I, too, will probably still go Saturday. And as Julie noted, the people-watching is priceless. Though I *do* wish I could swing the price of a weekend in Austin.
It’s becoming a Wally World for funnel cake-munching, spilled-powdered-sugar-shirted, sunburned suburbanites who think they’re being “edgy” by going to Bumbershoot.
If AT&T, Esurance, Samsung and the rest of the megacorp sponsorship clown train weren’t bad enough, now we have Fergie too. My first time was the best, 2001, and it’s gone downhill from there.
On the flipside, this year we’ve got Wu Tang Clan, Tokyo Police Club, Smoosh, the Blakes, and some others.
But just so Bumbershoot’s aware: the year you get Limp Bizkit is the year I quit going (Take that.) I honestly think the day is coming.
I started going to Bumbershoot when I was 15 back in 1997 (to date my youth). Concerts were fucking awesome.I was by myself that year and spent the day checking out Morcheeba (which put me to sleep but was still cool), Steel Pulse, and probably tons of other bands. I pretty much attended every year up to 2005 — and that day I went only to check out the Stooges since tickets were still reasonable. It used to be $12 a day or something ridiculous. Thourgh the years I’ve saw Taj Mahal under the orange sculputure thing on his “Kulanjan” tour with a bunch of African musicians and it was incredible. Later that day local day reggae dancehall dudes Jumbalassay put on a good show. I’ve seen Sonic Youth many times. I even liked a Black Crowes show I saw there. Watching Ozomatli in Key Arena throw their entire circus act at an unsuspecting crowd was pretty incredible. Morphine put on a way cool show when bands like Morphine could headline the Memorial Stadium stage. Watching the Drive-By Truckers do “Tornado” underneath the Space Needle with huge, ominous storm clouds rolling in was pretty cool. Wilco on the mainstage one morning was groovy. (I’ve seen some awful shit as well — my sister drug me to an Everclear performance once and it ranks as one of the worst live spectacles I’ve ever seen).
Bumbershoot was a great place — and then all of these other giant festivals started popping up and booking HUGE MTV/ROlling Stone type names and charging ludicrous amounts of money at the door everyday. I think it’s around this time that the BBshoot people began to change their tune and converted from a cool, vibrant, affordable music festival which emphasized great local acts and respectable national musicians of every ilk, and became Seattle’s attempt to host one of those crap fests (no offense intended to the fans of Coachella, Bonnaroo, etc — they just look and sound like horrible nightmares to me) with acts like Fergie and whatever else hideous apparitions of man they’ve thrown in front of the audience in recent years.
Boycott the crap. Isn’t it $40 a day or something now? Fuck it.