Bumbershoot

The line-up announcement for the last Bumbershoot music festival I will probably ever attend was made the night before the first day of Shaky Knees.  Bumbershoot has always been a sort of warm-up to me for the next week's MFNW, and I bought this year's Bumbershoot ticket before it was announced that MFNW has been altered and diluted to a poor imitation of its prior self. I probably wouldn't have otherwise decided to fly all the way to Seattle just on Bumbershoot's merits.

But I'm still going this year, and on the positive side, there are lots of opportunities in the line up to discover new bands.  I'm frankly underwhelmed by the headliners and will most likely be elsewhere (as in at other stages) during the sets by Foster The People, J Cole, and Panic! At The Disco. I have only a mild curiosity to see Wu-Tang and Elvis Costello, if only to cross them off my lifetime bucket list, and every time I see The Head And The Heart, I vow that it will be my last.

On the other hand, I'll get a chance to make up for missing The Replacements at Shaky Knees.

It's around the middle of the line-up chart that I get intrigued.  I'm interested in hearing The Both, the new collaboration between Aimee Mann and Ted Leo.  And Real Estate are one of my favorite bands.  Polica, Pickwick, and Kishi Bashi? Yes, yes, and yes! And Mission of Burma.  It will be interesting to see Jonathan Richman and Juliana Barwick in festival settings, Bomba Estereo and Mexican Institute of Sound should provide some nice Latin flavorings, and I'll get a chance to see The Dream Syndicate reunion before they play at The Earl.

San Fermin will be playing, and they absolutely killed it at Shaky Knees.

I'll also get a chance to hear some Seattle bands again that I discovered during Bumbershoots past, including Campfire OK, Dude York, and the captivating vocalist Tomo Nakayama (Grand Hallway).   Plus, I'm looking forward to Rose Windows, Western Haunts, and Hurray For The Riff Raff.  And look, there's Jessica Pratt way down there near the bottom of the line-up.

But the one act that's really got me scratching my head is Negativland.  What would that even sound like live? And I ask this having once seen their Mark Hosler live way back in the early 90s (with Half Japanese's Jad Fair opening).  But here's what Negativland is like together as a band:

What they bring to the stage will be anybody's guess.