i will upload all my pictures of bumbershoot (and i have a lot! i think i have found a new hobby - taking concert pictures. i may suck at it, but hey.. it's fun) during the week, but for now suffice it to say that i have had the best weekend in a long time. i have been going to bumbershoot since i moved to washington in 2002, and i can never remember seeing so many good bands. usually, i may see one or two that blow me away, but this year every single group that i saw was incredible! (that's due to the fact that i only went to see bands i was interested in, of course, but it's also owing to the line up bumbershoot put together this year)
today was perhaps the best. i started out with vince mira, a kid (i think he's a teenager?) who sounds exactly like johnny cash. i mean EXACTLY. i saw him last year at the pike place market 100th anniversary, and i was sure to get to bumbershoot by noon so that i could check him out today.
next up was mark pickeral and his praying hands who i absolutely adored. the guidebook thingy described him as "alt country." hmm.. that description seems to be thrown around a lot. but, whatever, he was great.
then i pretty much stuck to the stage under the space needle, which was clearly the best stage of the weekend (all of my favorite bands, with the exception of band of horses, were on the stage). first was blitzen trapper, who i am completely in love with. last month, i said that they were my favorite group at the sub pop anniversary festival, and today they were ten times better than they were then. seriously, i can't say enough about them. you know how every once in a while you see a band who completely and utterly floors you and makes you want to go home and buy all their albums and see all the shows that you can? this was that band.
another one who i loved today was john vanderslice. i've heard him before, but never gotten a chance to see him live. he was really great, and had some excellent banter with the crowd about the restaraunt at the top of the space needle. i've heard that it sucks and charges 11 dollars for a hamburger. i think someone told him that it was called denney's. ha. that would rock, actually.
i made the decision to forego seeing death cab on the mainstage - actually not a hard decision; although i loved them at one time, their last two albums (with the exceptions of 2 songs - marching bands of manhattan and cath) have left me feeling like something is missing. incidentally, once their show started, i noticed an absence of the annoying teenagers (not that all teenagers are annoying, but, i have to say, many are) that had been, well, annoying me all day. i don't know if that is some kind of remark about death cab, but there you go.
anyway, instead of seeing them, i went to see minus the bear, and it turns out that was by far the best choice i could have made. WOW. i've never had a chance to see them live before, and i was completely mesmerized. from the second they took the stage to the second they left, i was utterly transfixed. there are very few bands in the world who are so good that they can make me cry (a cookie for you if you can guess who two of them are), but minus the bear surpisingly did just that. i cannot believe i have wasted my time not being a fan of them before, a situation that i will remedy as soon as possible. it was kind of funny to watch some stupid kid try to crowd surf only to fall flat on his butt when no one wanted to play along. ha.
a note: iced coconut mochas from dillentante chocolate (i think i spelled that right) are really, really good. yum. so good that i got one both sunday and monday mornings. mmmm...
sigh. back to real life. why can't this be real life?
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