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Seattle doesn't necessarily look like a festive city, but don't let that fool you.
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Sept. 1-2, 2001
Seattle early on a Saturday morning was, as I understand, strange only in the dryness, but typical in that rain teased and threatened. Elliott Bay was as gray as the sky, and the mist obscured the Olympic Mountains that, I swear, rise from the peninsula across from downtown Seattle's waterfront piers.
Joggers passed me, as did the occasional car. The air was sleepy; Seattle on a weekend is not a city of early risers. But an energy, like gathered lightning about to crack, waited behind dark condo windows and locked shopfronts. Saturday was the second day of Bumbershoot. When the energy did wake and crack, it would strike the Space Needle, epicenter of the Seattle Center, the showgrounds for one of the largest arts and music festivals in the world.
Bumbershoot began in the late 60s, and people liked it, so they kept it going and growing. It grew... and grew... and grew... until now, in 2001, Bumbershoot takes over the entire 74 acres of the Seattle Center. There are 2,500 artists, who give 500 performances spread over 16 stages. It's all pretty impressive, for something that was named after a weird colloquialism for an umbrella.
In early morning though, as the city stirred the first note was still a couple of hours away. All that was truly awake right now, was the Pike Place Market, and I went there now, to bide time until the afternoon when I would meet a friend and we would head to Bumbershoot together.
Making my gradual way, in a plaza a giant free-roaming pig caught my eye. It looked tame; I walked over – it was something out of Greek myth, turned farce: a half-pig (pink head and legs), half-orca (black-and-white torso, complete with dorsal fin). The pig wasn't particularly responsive, so I walked on, wondering if a "Porca" would taste like seafood-flavored bacon.
I noticed similar creatures all around downtown, and not a single Pike Place butcher was chasing them. A candy-apple-red beast stood on one street corner, and upon closer examination of its feet I learned the standing pigs comprise a loosely organized stampede, as part of a downtown-wide exhibit called Pigs on Parade. Everyone, from large corporations (including, of course, Microsoft) to school classes sends in exhibits, each with its own theme. It's a strange obsession, this thing with pigs, but then again this is Seattle, which at one point also tricked the rest of the country into believing that flannel shirts were good year-round apparel.
At Pike Place Market – perhaps the closest the States ever gets to a Middle Eastern or Southeast Asian market – men threw fish and I thumbed comic books, sniffed flowers, and gorged myself on free samples of fruit and pepperjelly. In early afternoon, again watching the fish-throwers at Pike Place Fish, I stood near the large landmark brass pig – a further, yet permanent expression of Seattle's strange affection for the animal – and waited for a ride into my first day at Bumbershoot.
"Look at this guy behind your right shoulder," said my friend Caitlin, whose gifts for subtlety and inconspicuousness should not be noted, "He looks like he'd be more at home watching NASCAR."
I saw him – gut, mustache, cigar in breast (I use "breast" literally) pocket of a Kmart-looking shirt – and I saw him look at me. And Caitlin. I thought she'd spoken a bit loudly, music or no music. I turned around before eye contact turned to recognition; Caitlin had continued without a pause: "But he's here, listening to this African band."
She was right, too, and it was amazing. Kids, teenagers, middle-aged folks, senior citizens; all shapes, sizes and strata of the Left Coast had turned out. There really was no demographic, no target market; there was a population – about 300,000 daily – that represented nothing but a cross-section of Seattle and various arts and music enthusiasts everywhere. There were machinists, retirees, hippies, librarians, lawyers, jugglers, travelers, schoolchildren; there were – and I swear I'm not making this up – little old ladies in blue housecoats, who looked like they were on their way to do some shopping and just thought they'd pop in for a bit of a jam. And we were all watching the same African band, Habib Koité and Bamada, at the Kingston Funky Rhythm Stage.
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The Kingston Funky Rhythm Stage, where as some backstage staffers confided, between the pot-puffing of both crowds and artists, a contact buzz was guaranteed.
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Habib Koité and Bamada hail from Mali, in Western Africa, and it would just about be worth following them back there, so I can figure out how the drummer in the four-man group plays his "talking drum". His solo was so rife with technical skill, musical dynamics and rhythm, that to describe the music itself recalls the famous quote about how "writing about music is like dancing about architecture." I can only describe the bewildering technical ability, how under his arm, bent like a chicken wing, he held a small drum, and how with that small drum he thundered and whispered, slid up and down the decibels as gracefully as a bird gliding from the clouds to the ground, and back to the sky again.
He used the fingers of one hand, and a cloth-covered mallet in the other, and with his elbow flying up and down he controlled the drum's voice. I am no jaded expert of African drumming; perhaps to those more in the know such skill is common to the point of trite. I am just a Bumbershoot newbie, yet when skill is so honed and powerful, one must mention these things. I joined the crowd in being lost, a wanderer in his solo rhythm; I found myself at the end only in applause and shouts. The blur of his mallet and hands had possessed and taken us all.
The diversity of the acts and artists were nearly as diverse as the crowd itself. Over our two full days at Bumbershoot, Caitlin and I listened to writer Spalding Gray talk; we took in hip hop, salsa, reggae, funk – and that was just one stage. There was folk, acoustic, rock, blues. Celtic singer Mary Black made me long for Galway and a proper Guinness. There were groups called everything from Northern Lights, to the Red Elvises, to John Hammond's Wicked Grin, to Critters Buggin. Sunday night's set from Great Big Sea, a 4-man group from Newfoundland, made me a devoted fan within half a song. Great Big Sea is huge in Canada – so huge, in fact, that I believe roughly half the population came to Bumbershoot just for this show, which they did because the guys' concerts always sell out so quickly at home.
"Laura Love," said Caitlin, "put the 'YO!' back in 'yodel.'" An interesting description, and an odd claim to fame. I'd not heard of Laura Love, but then again I don't get out much, so I went with Caitlin to Love's Saturday night set. We planned on staying for most of it, then would catch the last half of the night's main stage headliner, The Black Crowes.
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The obligatory balloon salesman. There's always one.
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Well, I certainly like The Black Crowes, but tonight they might as well have been Barry Manilow. We didn't move an inch. Laura, you see, simply jams. She sings, she rocks, she throttles the bass – and yes, she really does yodel. She learned at a young age, growing up in Nebraska (now she lives in west Seattle) – and she was good. Really good. Scarily good, considering that yodeling was involved.
Like Great Big Sea, it took about half a song to convert me to a raving Laura Love fan, and I, ahem, borrowed a few of Caitlin's CDs before my return to Eugene (she even thinks she's getting them back). It's hard not to love a big black woman who jams her heart out and has such an obvious good time singing songs about everything from "mahbootay, may big ol' bootay", to the time, Laura said, "when I accidentally grew some pot in my basement."
Then there was the train song. "I want to do the train song," said Laura, whose voice suddenly dropped, as if she had swallowed a cup of gravel. "'Cuz when I do the train song... I channel the spirit... of Louis Armstrong." And you know what? I'm convinced she did.
The crowd loved her. I loved her. One girl – who was standing next to me, I'm happy to say – even flashed Laura. And no, she wouldn't let me take her picture. I'm sorry to say.
As she moved through the set, Laura also recounted a story from a recent concert she gave in Eureka, California. The concert was at a park, but it was a park that hadn't been there the last time Laura was in California, which hadn't been that long ago. "Where did this park come from?" Laura asked the crowd there, and they shouted back, "We voted in the park, and voted out Walmart!" Now how often do you hear that?
In a capitol of the Left Coast, the crowd exploded into cheers of hope and triumph. Laura jammed on, and Caitlin and I danced and jumped and sang right along with her and everyone else. It was Seattle, it was Bumbershoot; it was even a full moon, as we saw the next day, when the sky was nice enough to let the celestial bodies come out and play. You could even look across Elliott Bay and see the Olympic Mountains. (See, I told you they were there.) The Left Coast was alive, thriving and throbbing, yet mellow as could be. The bands played on and on, and as musicians partied and stage crews dismantled everything, I left two days later, hoarse and tired, smiling as the songs played right on through my mind as the plane left Seattle behind.
Links & Music
Here is a list of all the links mentioned in this story (to keep this page open while you explore, right-click the links and select "Open in New Window"):
Fan of the artists at this year's Bumbershoot? Curious and want to check out some new music? You can buy CD's via the links below:
Questions?
If you want more information about this area you can email the author or check out our North America Insiders page.
