As a teenager, the Bumbershoot crowds seemed manageable to me. As a young adult, they seemed teeming, unstoppable, and anxiety-provoking; a weekend spent trapped inside a can of ants. But at Bumbershoot 2012, density seems at appropriate, not malignant levels. I pass a black saxophonist in an amazing white suit on the way in, nodding and smiling around his mouthpiece as he breathes between phrases. I pull away when he launches into a Christian sermon. But I still love his suit.
People watching remains a sublime Bumbershoot activity. I don’t see a lot of interaction between disparate groups, as I did years ago when, say, a bagpiper in a feathered hat joined in with a band of African drummers. I marvel at the sight of a space knight in all golden armor, though, looking almost but not quite like a comic book character called the Rocketeer. He struts in long strides through the sunlight. Later on in the Food Court I’ll see him minus his helmet, rifling through his possessions. Even mighty knights have their mundane moments.
I’ve already seen JC Brooks & The Uptown Sound before, so I’m familiar with much of the Brooks shtick. But as the band warms up I warm to them, and the singer’s mix of strut, sass, and ceremony seems earned. JC tells people that marijuana works better for him than prescription antidepressants, and from a certain heavy-sweet fug drifting through the air, it seems certain audience members agree with him.
Brooks reflects on the uphill push of getting people to pay attention at a multi-stage festival, on having to grab the attention of wandering folks rather than focus on a crowd gathered at a club for him and his alone. But he’s ceaselessly athletic, to the point where my photographer has trouble grabbing a picture of him that’s fully in focus. The band finished with their patented cover of Wilco’ “I Am Trying To Break Your Heart” and heads off in a swirl of anticlimax. Bumbershoot keeps to a schedule that doesn’t facilitate encores.
Back in the Center House, Elvis, or at least someone jumpsuited and aviator-shaded like Elvis, comes through on a unicycle. “Working up an appetite, m’am,” he says when a woman asks him how’s he doing. He carries three juggling clubs, but presumably he doesn’t plan on juggling indoors, just working out on the unicycle.
On the Center House’s lower level sits, for the moment at least, the Seattle Interactive Media Museum (SIMM), a nonprofit organization dedicated to the preservation of video games and video game culture. Many of their displays actually function. I try my hand at Atari’s classic “Pong” game, and a “Hockey” game at the same console, but my photographer handily defeats me twice. I remind myself that I was never good at those games, and my role in their history consisted mostly of chaperoning my genius younger brother around while he played endlessly at Arnold’s On The Ave. But the Museum seems like a worthwhile project, and I wish them luck.
Back outside, I go searching for the Soul Rebels Brass Band. But I do not find the Soul Rebels. At the stage where they’re supposed to go on stands a local act called Aryon Jones & The Way, who sound agreeably like a black Motorhead. A woman next to me isn’t impressed. “The actual Motorhead doesn’t impress me,” she clarifies. Okay, that makes sense.
One thing I still haven’t gotten used to at Bumbershoot or elsewhere: Everyone’s on their gizmos. I’m not anti-cell like some I know, but it strikes me as incongruous that so many folks try to carry on conversations with people they can’t see, while JC Brooks or the likes of him puts on a show. Nobody looks up anymore, remarked one cultural commentator. I own a cell. But I intend to keep looking up for the foreseeable future. For one thing, something might be coming down at me.
Night falls politely, and the crowds thin out a tad, most folk probably either gone home or awaiting the big acts on the mainstages. My photographer and I ride the monorail through downtown, grinning at the view from up front alongside the driver. The festival flows, and awaits next year…