Hello and welcome to our coverage of Seattle’s Bumbershoot music and arts festival! This is Day 1, featuring acts like Nacho Picasso, Heart and more!

Flavr Blue

I almost I missed Flavr Blue (curse you Bumbershoot press line!) but what I did see I definitely enjoyed.  Traditionally a 3-piece (they were 4-piece today), Flavr Blue makes inspiring music.  Complex harmonies over a laid back groove creating a very “sunshine” feel to their set.  This is a digital band, so if electronic drums are a problem for you, I get it, but it’s done with such skill by this group that one hardly notices anything synthetic.  The vocals are sultry at times and bright at others, but always very tight and very right on.  Definitely need to check them out and give them more time and attention.

Dave B .

The winner of this year’s Sound Off!, Dave B is a man on a mission. I saw him at Block Party, and at that time I felt like he needed a bigger place to perform.  He’s on a bigger stage now, and I still feel like he needs even a bigger one.  Unlike some young MCs, he has no embarrassment or hesitation when he takes the stage, and the minute his feet hit that pedestal, he owns it. His content is solid but not preachy and self-righteous like some other local hip-hop acts I’ve seen this summer, and the guy seems to have performing in his blood. When he’s on stage he GIVES, a true entertainer to the core, and we all ate it up.

Nacho Picasso

Nacho Picasso is the darkness to Dave Bs light. With slow, bassy dirge-like beats, Seattle’s Nacho Picasso casually spits evil, and I love it. His lyrics create a circus of horrors; relating a sociopathic lifestyle with a relaxed ease and disregard that makes a the lurid seem inevitable, a fated survivalist existence. Everything my mom taught me tells me that this is naughty music and I shouldn’t like it cause I’m such a nice boy, but today I’m not a nice boy.  I’m mid-pit. I’m the sunshine exorcising my demons. Thanks Nacho!

Grynch

If Dave B is the Kid and Nacho is the Evil, Grynch is the Professor.  The Seattle MC came on stage to a flurry of applause, and immediately began giving us a workshop on intelligent content.  From song to song, Grynch did not let up. It wasn’t the unbridled fun of his predecessor, it was science. I found myself hanging on every word for fear I’d miss something, which is rare for me.  Grynch is another MC that I would highly recommend.  I don’t know if it was Macklemore blowing up that did it, but Seattle Hip Hop is coming up in a big way.  Was I you, I’d pay attention.

Joey Bada$$

I went down to the pit at the main stage to see Joey Bada$$, thinking that it would be a continuation of the quality that I had seen previously.  I wasn’t completely wrong, but I was pretty close.  The Brooklyn MC appeared to be phoning it in, looking completely disinterested in his own music.  I stayed for a while, but it was kind of sad to see an MC that’s blowing up right now phoning it in already.  Maybe he was having an off day, or maybe he wasn’t feeling well.  For whatever reason, the performance wasn’t even half a$$ for me, it was ¼ a$$ at best.

Thao and the Get Down Stay Down

I slogged up the stairs to the rest of the festival dejected, and needing a lift.  I got that lift from Thao and the Get Down Stay Down.  They had already started when I got there, and as I approached the stage I could hear the voice.  When I finally saw where that voice was coming from, I was pleasantly surprised.  Thao is a small woman with a powerful, Lily Allen-esque voice, and she’s backed by a band that are all obviously talented.  There’s a rock/blues/pop feel to this group that is magnetic.  I was standing in the back, and as the set played out, more and more people came to listen, moths to Thao’s light.  Soft, intricate harmonies and rolling instrumentals worked very nicely together and were accented perfectly by the delightful drums.  I could have probably listened to Thao and the Get Down Stay Down all day, but their set ended, and I had to go see Kendrick Lamar.

Kendrick Lamar

I’ve never seen Key Arena so full. Not for Radiohead, certainly not for the Storm or Redhawks games, and definitely not for any other performer on Day 1.  I was standing in the photo pit when the DJ dropped Backseat Freestyle, and the bass made me feel as if I was levitating. My hair shook.  My sense of self shook.  It was liberating.  Then Kendrick himself took the stage, sans hype man, and proceeded to completely destroy.  There’s really no question that the Compton MC is the next big thing.  In probably the most well-attended set during Bumbershoot, Kendrick offhandedly gave one of the better hip-hop sets I’ve seen, possibly due in part to the incredible bass and lyrical clarity made possible by a fantastic engineer paired with a fantastic artist on a fantastic sound system.  It was my first time seeing this guy perform, and I really wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.

Beat Connection

Hometown boys Beat Connection jumped in to fill a sudden vacancy left by Icona Pop’s inability to perform as scheduled.  Recent graduates of University of Washington, this blues/pop band is quite talented, but not really my thing.  It’s dancy and fun but just not dancy or fun enough for me. It was as if Sting and Vampire Weekend had a baby. A baby that everyone still says it’s cute, because all hometown babies are cute, and we should support them because we know them from around school.  I just couldn’t get into it, so I went off to explore.

ZZ Ward

I caught a few minutes of ZZ Ward’s very well-attended set at the Starbucks Stage.  A bluesy sound paired with her smoky voice meant that everyone over 40 was there, which is the general feel I got from this stage.  She does the “woman wearing a hat and singing truth” thing very well, but for some reason it fell flat here.  It was without inflection, and while she certainly had soul, it was all alone on the floor, with little support from her band.  It was good, but I didn’t feel compelled to stay until the end, as the 6 songs I listened to were essentially the same.

The Physics

I caught the Physics next.  I had previously seen the Seattle hip-hop group open for Mos Def during City Arts Fest, and I had high hopes that they would bring the thunder.  They brought the thunder, but it sounded like the thunder from 10 years ago.  The MCs are tight, the backup vocalists certainly don’t sap energy, and the band has obviously been playing together for some time, but there was something missing; it didn’t sound fresh. It sounded aged and played-out, with most songs having the same beat, but varying the hook.  It was definitely fun for the first few songs, but then it became monotonous, like someone playing the same song repeatedly for an hour.  I couldn’t take it, so I went to find something to eat.

!!! 

Freshly sated, I settled in to see what I had been told was going to be the performance of the day.  !!! has garnered a reputation for being a great live band.  I definitely agree that lead singer is energetic, but that does not a live performance make.  The band seemed jaded, almost tired of seeing their singers’ antics, which included mugging for the camera, dancing a lot, then dancing some more, then mugging to the camera some more, then doing the whole thing over again.  The music in and of itself was invigorating; dancey electro-pop (they call themselves punk but I don’t see it) and the crowd ate it up.  It was a bit of a one-trick pony for me though, and I wondered off almost without realizing it.

Watsky

I needed to see a performer that would reignite me, and I found it in young George Watsky, a San Fransisco MC with a staggering resume.  A veteran of Def Poetry Jam as a college sophomore, this kid is obviously skilled in ways of which I’m not even aware.  Flipping easily from humorous to technical, Watsky’s persona is magnetic, and his passion leaks out his eyes.  His content was deeply personal and packed with meaning, all of which resulted in the audience staying with him for every second, rising with the ups and crashing with the drops.  The dedication continues off stage. While waiting to interview him I watched him literally sign autographs for and talk to every fan that wanted it, which I found incredibly impressive.  He’s coming up.  Watch out.

Kris Orlowski

I was able to check out Kris Orlowski’s set for a regrettably short time.  Kris is a Seattle native and such a goddamn nice guy and it’s VERY difficult to criticize his music, but the two aren’t connected.  Kris has a way of writing a song that burns into your very core.  Dead honest lyrics and a way with language, combined with a chocolatey baritone that melts the bones, creating an instant connection.  Performing here with the much-vaunted Passenger String Quartet, and being set off in a corner behind EMP, the intimate performance that showcases Kris’ talents was set, and I loved it.  I’ve actually never not loved Kris’ stuff, from the first time I heard his hauntingly tragic “Jessi” and the triumphant “Warsaw,” to when we were lucky enough to host him in-studio at a college radio station where I once worked.  I can’t think of a Seattle singer-songwriter that I can suggest more highly than Kris.  If you haven’t heard him, you need to be doing that already.

HEART

I don’t know how I’m going to review Heart’s set.  I’m such a massive fan that they really couldn’t have disappointed me.  Ann’s voice is still a fucking sledgehammer, and Nancy is still a guitar-playing seductress and the other two guys were good too.  It was awesome to see the look of blissed-out glee I see so often on the faces of younger kids but this time on the faces of their parents, who seemed to be transported 40 years back in an instant, seeing Heart again through the eyes of youth.  It was well-deserved bliss indeed, as the Seattle natives took us on a journey through their prolific catalog, starting off with Barracuda, Magic Man and several others before playing the newer stuff.  The sisters from Bellevue gave one of the most masterful stage performances I’ve seen, playing to every member of the crowd, architects of a set that rose and fell, crashing like a wave at the end.  I’m so glad I got to see them.  I can’t even tell you.

Crystal Castles

Caught a little of Crystal Castles, and I can see why people like it, but it just isn’t my deal.  The cacophony of the whole thing was shocking, not in the “oh I see what you did there” way, but in the “what the actual fuck is happening on stage” kind of way.  Awesome performers, and definitely masters of their niche, but again, I just didn’t get it.

Day one was Seattle-centric and with lots of hip-hop.  Some very high highs and some low mediocres, but I’m still VERY proud of our music scene in this city, and I can’t wait to do it again tomorrow.
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