Seattle’s Bumbershoot: A Music Festival Actually For Music Fans

Seattle has a rich musical lineage. Of course, there’s the grunge boom that overtook the globe by way of the proverbial Big Four: Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden and Nirvana, the latter of whom’s existence you’ll be reminded of every 10 minutes or so you spend in the city. But it didn’t end in the ‘90s; it continued into the aughts with rain-soaked indie rock groups like Death Cab for Cutie and Fleet Foxes, coinciding with the burgeoning cachet of Sub Pop and KEXP.

I had never visited Seattle—or the Pacific Northwest in general—until this past Labor Day weekend. It had long been a travel destination of mine to cross off the list, figuring that I’d get there eventually, for one reason or another. Such a reason came to fruition when I was offered to cover Bumbershoot, which was taking place at Seattle Center in late August and early September. This marked the 51st edition of the Seattle staple, and most locals I spoke with (baristas, waiters, shop owners, etc.) during my short stay seemed to light up when I mentioned I was attending. It has strong roots here, and the lineup’s indie rock bent pays homage to its relationship with the city; there’s a whole KEXP stage, mind you. It’s refreshing to find a festival with a bit of a sharper focus, rather than one that tries in vain to appeal to the widest swath of normies possible, as is the contemporary trends. It’s easy to blend in amid festival season, which mostly share the same four headliners plus everyone’s favorite token guitar bands the Foo Fighters and Red Hot Chili Peppers. Bumbershoot, with its smaller scale and more deliberate curation, doesn’t succumb to a similar fate.

Featuring everyone from Seattle legends Chastity Belt, who receive many an onstage shout-out, to indie rock hall-of-famers Pavement, Bumbershoot covers a wide gamut without overextending itself. It’s not exclusively an indie-rock fest, though. 2024’s roster boasts rapper Freddie Gibbs, soul crooner Lee Fields, ‘90s hip-hop trio Cypress Hill, experimental poet Moor Mother, Disney Channel stalwarts Aly & AJ and YouTube sensation Marc Rebillet, to name a handful of examples. Taking place over two days and four stages, it felt like the perfect mid-sized fest for the indie-minded yet musically curious.

My first set of the weekend is Hurray for the Riff Raff, whose set consists almost entirely of cuts from their excellent new album, this year’s The Past Is Still Alive. Seattle has a rainy reputation, but Saturday is scalding hot. Alynda Segarra and co. play on the Mural stage, which admittedly takes some time to find without a clear lay of the land (or appropriately labeled festival stages), and the late-afternoon sun has visibly taken its toll on some unlucky attendees who definitely need to apply some more sunscreen. So I settle toward the back of the area in the shade as the band launches into the LP’s opener, “Alibi,” whose searing, twangy guitar line perfectly mirrors the grueling 85-degree heat. “Drink water,” Segarra reminds the audience roughly halfway into their set. Bottled water costs $4 a pop, so I have mostly taken to the free sparkling yerba mate and bottled Starbucks (one of the fest’s sponsors, which is, to be honest, not great!) Pink Drink in the industry lounge’s fridge. By the end of the weekend, each beverage must have constituted a respective half of my body weight.

As the final notes of album closer “Ogallala” ring out into the field, I head back to the fest’s entrance to be escorted backstage. I’m scheduled to speak with an artist for a currently unpublished profile (you’ll be able to read that in this very magazine later this fall) in 15 minutes, so my wife, who’s my +1 for the weekend, kills time in a nearby area while I’m off to conduct a brief interview. By the time I return, she’s fully converted into an ardent fan of Lee Fields, who’s performing at the main stage, AKA the KEXP/Fountain stage. I check my phone as I’m walking back to an endearingly exclamatory text from her in the group chat we share with her parents: “Thoroughly enjoying Lee Fields while G is interviewing someone!!!” Even though she’s nursing an unfinished, frankly terrible $20 cocktail—the only one we purchased all weekend, for obvious reasons—she is, indeed, thoroughly enjoying Lee Fields. Even from a distance, his onstage charisma and charm are undeniable. We’re both relatively unfamiliar, and his take on retro soul, which reminds me quite a bit of fellow vintage revivalist Leon Bridges, is pleasant to listen to.

After cooling off with Shug’s Ice Cream, which elicits a big “hell yeah” from me, we head back to the Mural stage to watch, fittingly enough, Helado Negro. Phasor is one of my favorite albums of 2024, and it’s, as expected, the main focus of his setlist. Roberto Carlos Lange’s music is aqueous and groovy, a combination conducive for light head-nodding. “You can copy me if you want,” he quips, referring to his own dance moves. “Move your body however you like.” He closes with two back-to-back selections from This Is How You Smile: the cloudy “País Nublado” and blissful “Running.” Lange’s performance is hypnotically relaxing, a stark contrast to the energetic shows from Lauren Mayberry of synth-pop juggernauts CHVRCHES, plus Freddie Gibbs. I’m able to catch only a snippet of Gibbs’ set, but the snippet I manage to catch is a total blast. He has a complete command over the audience, which is certainly one of the largest at the fest. At one point, the crowd starts chanting “FRED-DIE! FRED-DIE! FRED-DIE!,” and it’s obvious that a lot of people came here specifically to watch him. It’s understandable why.

Performing on the same stage after Helado Negro, Lauren Mayberry’s songs, many of them unreleased, get the crowd moving with some nu-disco tracks and a searing synth-punk closer. In between songs, the Scottish vocalist is visibly nervous, even admitting as much at one point. During a slower ballad that she played at an electric piano, she jokes in a sing-songy voice that performing that song filled her with “deeeeeep anxiety.” Aside from her solo material, she did a guitar-and-vocals version of “How Not to Drown,” the Robert Smith-featuring song from CHVRCHES’ 2021 record Screen Violence, an album I was initially cold on but have since come to really love (critics can change their opinions!). Halfway through, she signals to her guitarist: “Stopstopstop!” Maybe the song about suicidal ideation isn’t fit for a festival, she says. So, she kicks into a cover of Chappell Roan’s “Good Luck, Babe!,” a song about the regrets of compulsory heterosexuality. “The only time I’m ever singing that again is if I’m drunk at karaoke,” Mayberry says once she’s done, out of breath from hitting that infamously high note at the end of the bridge.

Once Mayberry wraps up, my wife and I rush to the main stage to see if we can catch Aly & AJ doing “Potential Breakup Song,” an indelible fixture of our Disney Channel childhoods. We’re dismayed to hear them performing it as we’re headed over there, so we loiter at the far edge of the large crowd the sisters have amassed. After the song, two people nearby are on the verge of throwing hands at each other, shouting in each other’s faces, and some of the others in their group are holding them back. That’s the power of “Potential Breakup Song.” So we opt for the sweet, sweet air conditioning and velvet couches of the industry lounge as Cypress Hill takes the Fisher stage. Frankly, most people—myself included—do not know the vast majority of Cypress Hill’s music. But what we do know is “Insane in the Membrane,” and that couldn’t be more evident. It seemed like every single person in the audience was singing the titular refrain, even way in the back where I was watching. According to setlist.fm, the wedding reception staple “Jump Around,” a House of Pain tune produced by Cypress Hill’s DJ Muggs, came next, but I’m securing a good spot for Pavement by this point.

Since they reunited for the second time in 2022, the ‘90s indie-rock icons have enjoyed an exalted status that places them at the top of festival billings, such as this one. Spit on a Stranger B-side “Harness Your Hopes” became an unlikely TikTok hit, and now there’s even a full-fledged Alex Ross Perry film starring Joe Keery, Tim Heidecker and Jason Schwartzman that recently premiered at the Venice Film Festival. Oh, and they caught strays in Greta Gerwig’s Barbie last year during a mansplaining segment. All this is to say that Pavement have been on a victory lap of sorts, and it’s uncertain just how long this victory lap, or tour, will last. Their ramshackle live show consists mostly of Slanted and Enchanted and Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain tunes, and the audience especially lights up during the one-two punch of “Range Life” and “Gold Soundz” that comes toward the denouement. Who knows how much longer Pavement will be playing live together? That much is uncertain. As of now, all they have on their itinerary is Riot Fest at the end of September. If I caught the penultimate Pavement show, then I’m happy to have seen them during a time when they’re properly celebrated.

Sunday is not quite as stacked as Saturday, but the shows I do see, almost exclusively at the Fisher stage, are more than worthwhile. My favorite performance of the whole fest does go to Kim Gordon, after all. The Sonic Youth co-founder’s set is LOUD, and I’m not even super close to the stage, but guitar noise comes blaring out of the speakers like a litany of cacophonous alarms (complimentary). Opening with the SoundCloud-rap-adjacent “BYE BYE,” Gordon flows through her sophomore solo album, The Collective, one of my favorites of the year, almost in its entirety, save for a couple of omissions—no “Tree House” or “Shelf Warmer”—and some No Home Record songs like “Cookie Butter” and “Hungry Baby” tacked on at the end. The new tunes, while still great on the proper record, hit particularly hard live, largely thanks to touring drummer Madi Vogt, who lends a substantive heaviness to Justin Raisen’s ribcage-rattling beats.

On a complete hairpin turn, Kurt Vile & the Violators take the Fisher stage next, and the Philly musician’s breezy yet uneasy twang turns the kinetic pit into a gentle sway. After opening with “Jesus Fever,” from 2011’s Smoke Ring for my Halo, Vile tells the crowd how elated he is to perform at a festival with such cool people, mentioning by name Chastity Belt, Kim Gordon, Pavement and Courtney Barnett, whose invocation gets the loudest cheers. We stay until the end to hear the sprawling closer “Like Exploding Stones,” a highlight of 2022’s (watch my moves), before rushing to the main stage for Courtney Barnett, as Vile is likely doing, too.

The distant sounds of “Rae Street” and “Avant Gardener” overtake Seattle Center as I settle into a spot with a decent view. Barnett hasn’t released a proper album since 2021’s Things Take Time, Take Time, but she hasn’t performed in my home base of Kansas City since 2018, so I’m happy to hear “Turning Green” and “Rae Street” live as much as I am the older stuff. Still, “Pedestrian at Best” takes the cake for me as the best Courtney Barnett song, both on record and on stage. The crowd’s reaction is similarly electric, a suitable mood for a banger brimming with atonal guitar squalls and an allusion to Sigmund Freud. Near the end, the Aussie songwriter pays tribute to Chastity Belt with a cover of “Different Now,” “a song I wish I wrote,” as she explains to the crowd. Sensing the end of her set coming near, and wanting to secure a solid view of headliner James Blake, I begin the long trek to the Fisher stage at the other end of the venue. While I’m writing this piece, I’m checking setlist.fm and actively mourning the fact that I missed Barnett and Kurt Vile play their joint song “Over Everything” together as the set closer. I’m trying not to think about it!

Meanwhile, James Blake walks onstage to the ambient soundscapes of “Playing Robots into Heaven,” the instrumental title track of the English producer’s latest album. Say what you will about Blake and his recent invention of Patreon, but that record is incredible, and he fortunately plays two of the best songs from it, “Loading” and “Tell Me.” There’s nothing from 2016’s The Colour in Anything, which includes some of my favorite James Blake songs like “I Need a Forest Fire,” “Timeless” and “Points,” but there’s an extended jam of “Voyeur” from 2013’s Overgrown, synchronized with green and white lights that flash in tandem with the syncopated rhythms. To put it simply, it’s sick. Everyone roars as he sings the first notes of Frank Ocean’s “Godspeed,” a popular cover of his and one of the many high-profile songwriting and production credits on his resume. As the Space Needle looms overhead, Blake expresses his gratitude for the enthusiastic crowd after singing “Retrograde.” “There are moments when it feels like you’re singing a song for the first time again,” he tells the audience. “This is one of those moments.”

When it’s time to catch my early morning flight back home on Monday, I’m exhausted but content. Word on the street is that, if you love music, you’ll probably love concerts. They can be exhausting sometimes. You’re standing for hours, and your back hurts, and your feet are tired and you’d like some water but you’re unwilling to give up your good view of the stage. That much is amplified at a festival, and the crowds can be far more overwhelming. As an introverted music fan, I haven’t been to that many music fests, opting instead for shows that take place at a smaller club or theater. But Bumbershoot wasn’t just manageable; it was a lot of damn fun, and that’s thanks to the slate of stellar performances and artists on the bill. Music festival lineups in the 2020s often feel like they’re curated by that insufferable AI DJ on Spotify, but Bumbershoot feels like a pointed attempt to cater to music fans. Thankfully, it’s also a successful one.

Grant Sharples is a writer, journalist and critic. He writes the Best New Indie column at UPROXX. His work has also appeared in Interview, Pitchfork, Stereogum, The Ringer, Los Angeles Review of Books and other publications. He lives in Kansas City.