Bumbershoot was awesome!

For those of you who don't live in the northwest of the U.S., there is a music and arts festival every Labor Day weekend in downtown Seattle called Bumbershoot that is a must-attend if you're in the area. For music lovers like myself, this is 3 days of music utopia, but there are a lot of other things to do too. This was my first year attending, and I only went on Sunday and Monday since I had chores to do on Saturday, but now I wish I could have figured out how to go on Saturday too - the festival completely exceeded my expectations!

I was mostly interested in the music, but I did take a break for some local comedy yesterday. Harrold Gomez had the whole place in stiches. If you have a chance to check him out, do it! As far as the music goes, there were 6 different stages to choose from and with the exception of checking out a few songs from The New Pornographers, I didn't spend any time at the main stage. Although I really would have like to seen Spoon, and the Steve Miller Band. I just find the smaller stages much more intimate - plus, I already own music from most of the headliners - I'm looking for new stuff.

I would have to say, my favorite performance on Sunday was Jeremy Enigk, but mainly because I am all over the folk/rock singer/songwriter genre. I wasn't familiar with his solo music before then and was totally hooked. I had also never heard of Electric Shades of Blue before. You know that feeling you get when you're walking down the street and you look down and unexpectedly find a 100 dollar bill? That's how I felt when ESB started rockin'! Their frontman has more soul and expression than most guys twice his age in the same classic rock/blues genre. They delivered a fantastic performance ... 120% ... I will be picking up their latest release!

On Monday, I'd have to say my favorite performance was the BellRays. Every member of the band just gave it their 120% - they just made you feel thrilled to be alive and you just didn't want them to ever stop playing ... and they rarely did. There wasn't even a pause between songs - it was just like a non-stop jam - amazing! The only other set I was really looking forward to yesterday was Rocky Votolato and he difinitely didn't disappoint. 75 minutes of gutwrenching emotion put to music. I'm looking forward to picking up his most recent release and seeing him live again in October. His music is actually very close to the music I'd like to be writing.

I also got to see a live KEXP recording of Nouvelle Vague yesterday. I hadn't been to one of these yet so it was pretty cool. Speaking of KEXP, I stopped by their booth to say hey (and to tell them they could change their tagline from Music That Matters to Radio For People Who Hate Radio :) and Quilty 3000 took my picture and blogged about my visit - that was pretty cool! BTW, you don't have to live in Seattle to listen to the best radio station on the planet. Podcasts, streams, you choose ... check it out!