Bumbershoot is legendary when it comes to festivals. It hasn’t always been a “music” festival, but there is no doubt now that the music is what brings people to the heart of Seattle for one of the most diverse lineups we’ve seen all year.
It was our first year slinging cream here and I really wasn’t sure what to expect. I knew the festival has a reputation for being pretty crowded. It makes sense because tix for all three days start as low as $60. It took a little while for us to get approved to give away ice cream because Bumbershoot takes place directly in the heart of downtown Seattle and free space to park an ice cream truck is extremely scarce. Once we realized we were going to be in the main production area, not near any stages or artists, we decided our main goal would be to fill out our shuttle cooler and run all over City Center gifting free treats to all the people helping to make Bumbershoot happen.
We had a great crew on board and everyone pitched in and still set aside enough time to catch their favorite bands. Naturally, since I was part of the crew, I set aside a good chunk of time to catch full sets by The Avett Brothers, Andrew Bird, Fleet Foxes, Grand Archives, and a bunch of other partial sets. We lucked out because our unofficial tour partners from 2006, Charlie and Allie, happened to live only a few blocks away and they allowed us to stay at their place the whole weekend.
Seattle and the Pacific Northwest is notorious for cloudy/rainy weather but that seems to rarely happen during summer. The days were warm and sunny with the nights cooling down just a smidge.
Highlights from the festival were
– The best Avett Brothers set I’ve seen to date. I’m banking they’re gonna get huge very soon.
– Seeing Andrew Bird with Martin Dosh performing a large chunk of their new album, Armchair Apocrypha
– Slinging cream to all the Flatstock Artists
– Not having to drive Bessie away each night
The goal for next year is to try to confirm that we’ll be able to make it early then maybe park behind the main stage and call that area homebase. It’s lot more open and would be a good centralized place to base our operations. Until then we’ll just listen to all the cool in-studio performances from KEXP’s Music Lounge. As always, we thank Levi’s and Jakprints for all their help getting us there.
