Bumbershoot: Day Two

We woke up at the hotel Monday morning and met Conor for breakfast at a cafe around the corner. Checked out of our room and drove back down to the Seattle Center for our second day of festival enjoyment. With headliners Drake and Mary J. Blige, the Mainstage lineup wasn't our speed, so we bought the cheaper tickets for the day. Conor nabbed a ticket and we immediately went to the comedy booth to obtain our Chris Hardwick/Nerdist Podcast passes. That was scheduled for 2:45, so we had about 90 minutes to dawdle around before that started. We consulted the schedule,





and decided to go see a Bluegrass act called Trampled by Turtles. The grass was wet, but we found a handy solution in the free bandanas being distributed by Bumbershoot volunteers. They were good for sittin' on.



Trampled by Turtles were a lot of fun, though it started to get a bit rainy.



After they played several songs, it was time to head over to the theater for a live recording of the Nerdist podcast. We ended up with second row center seats, and I was in nerdy fangirl heaven. The gentlemen of the Nerdist had numerous hilarious guests, and Mr. Hardwick will be posting the episode in a week or two. I tried to be discreet about taking photos, and this is the best one I got. The two ladies on the left are Garfunkel & Oates. To the right of them is David O'Doherty, then Chris Hardwick, Jonah Ray, Matt Mira, and Doug Benson.



David O'Doherty and Garfunkel & Oates were completely hilarious, as were the gentlemen from the Nerdist. Doug Benson mostly makes stoner humor, so I wasn't that into him, but he had a few decent one-liners. I'll post a link to the podcast episode once it goes live. After the Nerdist recording, we caught a few minutes of the Meat Puppets. I wasn't that into their set, but they were one of Kurt Cobain's major influences.



We hung around for a few minutes, but the rain got the better of us and we decided to look for food. Our choices weren't great, but we found a nice quiet upstairs area to eat. Nearby, there was a life-size chess board, so Bobby and Conor stopped for a round of Wizard's Chess.




Chess is boring, so Tara and I went to find some elephant ears, which are the opposite of boring.



Following our meal, we went back to the Broad Street Stage to catch Japandroids. I think I would have enjoyed them more if I'd been familiar with their music, but they had a good show going.



After a few minutes of Japandroids, we split up for a while. Bobby, Tara, and I went to see Loch Lomond, who are from Portland. Bobby and I hung out with several of the members during PDX Pop Now! a couple of years ago. They were awesome, and we had great seats. It was a pity they were hidden away at the Northwest Stage in the back of the Seattle Center with only about 30 audience members.





I would have liked to stay longer, but we were due to meet back up with Conor to see Jenny & Johnny. On the way to their stage, we discovered Flatstock, which was a huge expo featuring original concert posters from various artists. We had been doing pretty well, cash-wise, until that happened. We went over to Jenny & Johnny, who were our last show of the weekend.



Jenny & Johnny were good, but we left early to go back to Flatstock to make some purchases, while Conor went to stand in line for Patton Oswalt seats. All-told, Bobby and I ended up with five posters. I got a Tara McPherson print, a Liz Phair poster, and an awesome print of a heart in a jar. I am a sucker for things featuring anatomical hearts. Bobby got posters from The Faint and Stereolab. We will have us some stylish walls. Posters in hand, we headed back to the car to begin our long drive back to Portland. Despite a brief detour to the Southcenter H&M store, we made it back home in record time, with no traffic at all. Got home around 11:30 p.m. and crashed out.

Additional photos available here.