Don’t Fear the Bumber: Another Take on Day 1 of the Festival
Bumbershoot Blog 2008
Day 1: Saturday, August 30
By Sybil Rohlf
On Saturday Matt and I took the girls to Bumbershoot, Seattle’s yearly music festival. I hadn’t been since Iris, now four, was just over a year old. I don’t even remember who we saw that year, only one performance, but we had a hell of a time getting home on several different buses in the pouring rain. But I digress. I will admit to not being too terribly excited about the festival this year. Typically it is super crowded and typically our children are more than we can handle on a good day in the protected space of our tiny apartment, but once again Matt had press passes so we packed up the girls, hopped on the 28 and went Bumbering.
Food and skateboards: a decent start to our day
We checked in easily, got our press passes and wandered out looking for some food. Likely we made the worst possible food choice, paying $7 for a plate of something that barely passed for phad thai and a chicken satay skewer. Pretty much every other booth we passed was making what appeared to be something much more delicious. Matt had a philly cheese steak and that was deelish. We parked ourselves on the fountain lawn and watch the skateboarders on the Rockstar vert ramp. Matt was delighted, and I was appalled, by the amazingly scantily-clad Rockstar girls who were serving up free drinks a mere twenty feet away from us. The girls loved the music and skateboarding, but alas, it was time to head to the mainstage for a little Neko Case.
Waiting for Neko Case in Memorial Stadium
Neko Case and Starbucks: my own Northwest heaven
The press passes came in handy here, as we were able to get in to the show from the entrance behind the stage. We had friends who waited in line for what seemed like half the show to even get in to the stadium from the main entrance. I was extra-pleased the Starbucks’ crew had a tent set up inside Memorial Stadium. They weren’t even charging through the nose for their beverages as most other vendors at Bumbershoot seem to do. $4 for the same drink I usually pay $3.83 for. Not too shabby. We found a spot on the “lawn” near some other families with small children and plopped down. Neko started a few minutes later, we danced, sang along, took pictures and hung out with friends.
The jury is out: do ASS and kids mix well?
After hitting up the press room for tiny cans of soda and red vines, we were off to see Asylum Street Spankers. Now, I loves me some ASS. Yeah, yeah, pretty funny. But they were not at their finest during the band’s afternoon kid’s show. Technical difficulties plagued the beginning of the set and though some of the songs were spot-on kid’s favorites (one about a lunchbox, one about boogers) some of them were complete snooze-inducing mis-steps. The only female in the group, whose name escapes me, seemed uber-cranky, as well. Maybe pregnancy induced? Who knows. We left about 2/3 of the way through the set to seek out some cotton candy for our girls before making the hike back down to Dexter to hop back on the 28 and head home.
Overall impression on the festival this year was overwhelmingly positive. We have to keep ourselves open to any and all possibilities when traversing unfamiliar situations with the girls, but everything went incredibly smoothly this trip. The festival was comfortably crowded, which was a huge bonus. We never found ourselves trapped in a sea of slow-moving folks, as usually happens at Bumbershoot. Looking forward to next year, where hopefully we can coerce the girls in to staying up late enough to see a headliner!
Note: Sybil took all of these photos with her Sidekick
More Bumbershoot 2008 coverage
- Day 1: Nada Makes Nice with Bumbershoot by Ben Allen
- Day 2: Nada Booker Turns Blogger
- Day 3 in Pictures by Matt Brown
- Day 3: Chris and Jolie Tag Team the Final Day