Best Interview:
Kerry Zettel of Das Llamas. (You can hear it here) Okay, so I don't rank my interviews; I love all of my interviews, especially from this weekend. I just tend to overanalyze every single word of an interview and try to make each session unique to the music. Aside from hearing several of Das Llamas' songs, I just let myself be entirely surprised (and enthralled) by their appearance at Sky Church. I am stumped and have no idea how to describe the very eclectic rock that I had just witnessed, other than to say that the color green is exactly what I visualize when I think of Das and that was the primary color used throughout the light show. After the show, Kerry and I talked almost exclusively about that performance and being at Bumbershoot. Great conclusion to the evening.

Best Performance:
Art Brut! I never saw them at their public performance as it was the same time as Army of Me (I had to make quite a few hard choices as such this weeked) but I did catch them at the "Secret" KEXP Music Lounge on Sunday.

Best Random Fact Heard on the Streets:
I ran into Ted Hudson, bassist of the Damnwells, when I was ferociously trying to navigate the insane crowds against the Esurance stage on my way to the Sky Church. He was sad that he missed John Legend because he went to high school with him. (!)

Best Staff of Volunteers:
Okay, it's a tie. I love the people at both the EMP Sky Church and the Sound Transit Stage. They actually clearly stated all that I needed to know as a kid here with a photo pass for the very first time. (Hear that, Exhibition Hall, did you hear that?) Plus they were just plain cool. Speaking of Sound Transit, that leads me to...

Best Bumbershoot Stage:
Sound Transit Stage. I saw the Lashes, the Trucks, the Blakes, all of the bands that start with "the" making it look semantically annoying to list them here — plus Ted Leo.

Best Kick Out:
I had just came back from Das Llamas at about 10 minutes till 9:30 to the press room and was about to integrate all 3 of my interview blogs online when...

"Can you do me a favor?"

I glanced up, and the press room coordinator stood on other side of the table looking at me. Sure.

"Since you're the only one in here, could I kick you out so that I can go see Wu-Tang Clan?"

OKAY!

I considered that my calling for.....

My Best Photography Experience:
Sharing the same stage as Ted Leo & the Pharmacists on Monday.

Best Conclusion:
I don't think that the Seattle Times realize that giving photo/press passes away to 5 little kids from Vera for Bumbershoot 2007 is like feeding raw sugar to a 2-year-old for the first time.

Julia Lipscomb

The weather was kind all weekend long. The rain held off until the very last moments of Bumbershoot and started pouring like the clouds were waiting all weekend. It wasn't great the day before, and it definitely isn't great the day after, but the sun shined on Bumbershoot.

It seems almost impossible for one to look back on three days of non-stop music, arts, comedy, and running around. The best way I can imagine to recap such an enormous festival is to talk about all of the stuff that I missed.

Renton's own Dyme Def garnered tons of attention behind their debut full length "Space Music." I had two chances to see them and missed them both. They played on the Seattle hip-hop showcase on Saturday and I missed them then to see Sabzi performing stand up comedy. They're a great group, and I would have loved to see them perform on a Bumbershoot stage, but I could not fit them into my schedule any time.

I made plans to see three different comedians throughout the festival, all of whom I missed, and all of whom played every single day. I wanted badly to see Eugene Mirman (signed to Sub Pop and on Flight of the Conchords), and Fred Armisen (of Saturday Night Live, and a big fan of indie rock (he directed a video by Portland's The Helio Sequence), who performed during the same comedy set, but none of their times worked out with mine. I'm sure they were both hilarious and I was missing out on the comedy show of my lifetime, but I just could not fit them into my busy schedule. Also, in the comedy realm: I wanted to see Michael Ian Black one time throughout the weekend. Unfortunately he played only headlining comedy slots and I wasn't able to make any of them because of important indie rock which was happening simultaneously.

Ted Leo and the Pharmacists surely was an exciting show, but I have no idea for myself because he was pitted against Wu-Tang Clan. I'm confident he looked intense all throughout the set and stretched his face while screaming his lyrics. I'm sure his fans crowd surfed and left the show with sweat dripping down their faces.

I've heard a lot of people say Art Brut was the band of the festival (honestly I think they should have been on the main stage), but I got distracted by the responsibilities of blogging and an enormous crowd and passed. The post on this here blog made me cringe because I can't believe I missed such an awesome show. I know it was great, but I wont be telling anyone all about it today at Vera.

I also missed both Andrew Bird and Devendra Banhart on Sunday night, and apparently so did everyone else writing for this blog.

The last thing I missed was the things which I wanted to post in this blog but didn't. I took pictures for a post about just how long the lines were at Vera. The capacity of the Comedy Stage West at Vera was not high, and the demand for the shows was. Every performance people were turned away because the venue had filled extremely quickly. I also wanted to write a post about how great the food looked, but I was always too busy to stop and eat anything.

All five of us worked as hard as we possibly could to see as much as we possibly could and still enjoy ourselves over the three-day festival, but Bumbershoot is so enormous and ever-changing that there is no way we could have picked up everything. Art happens spontaneously at Bumbershoot and we can't always be there to find it. We found impromptu break-dancing in the afternoon and it was amazing. There were people in the circle who were obviously experienced break-dancers, and then there were those who were definitely beginners but the everyone clapped along like each one of the break-dancers were the best they had ever seen. I suppose that is what Bumbershoot is all about.

Tristan Pelton

Yes! Yes! Yes! Guess Who's On Third... it's Lupe Fiasco! Lupe was the third performer at Memorial Stadium on Monday, and those familiar with his work know the opening sentence of this post as Lupe's first lines from his verse on the song Touch the Sky by Kanye West. I remember back in early 2006 watching the video for Touch the Sky and thinking that Lupe Fiasco was one lucky guy to be featured on a song by a superstar like Kanye West. From that time on, Lupe's career has taken off and is now pretty much "sky high." In June of 2006, Lupe released the song Kick, Push which gave him crossover appeal to the skateboarding community.Then two weeks before Lupe dropped his first album, Food and Liquor, Kanye brought out Lupe during Kanye's Bumbershoot performance at Memorial Stadium. When Lupe returned to the Bumbershoot stage on Monday he really was "looking extra fly" — Lupe wore all white (except for his black aviator shades) with a polo shirt and the requisite popped collar. He played Kick, Push (see video) to the delight of all the fans, and to my delight he performed a rousing rendition of the song Daydreamin.

Lupe brought out double threat rapper and singer Gemini to perform a couple of songs, and one of the songs was so good that I had to wonder if it might be Gemini who continues the cycle and returns to Bumbershoot next year as the headliner. There were two fairly interesting moments worth mentioning. The first occurred when Lupe made an anti-Bush statement and the crowd cheered louder for that line than just about everything else in Lupe's set. Still influenced by last night's local hip-hop moment, I thought about what the crowd reaction would have been if event planners could have finagled getting local rapper Geologic AKA Prometheus Brown up there to collaborate with Lupe on Kick, Push (Prometheus Brown has a variation of Kick, Push called Kick, Bush (Out) up on his myspace). The second was when Lupe played the song Us Placers which features Kanye West and Pharrell Williams, who, together with Lupe, are rumored to make up the super group CRS. At other acts I attended, crowd reaction diminished noticeably whenever an artist performed new material. However, judging by the fan reaction to Us Placers, it seemed like a lot of fans were already familiar with the song. The song was released, not on an LP, but as part of Kanye's Can't Tell Me Nothing mixtape. Perhaps the enthusiasm for Us Placers indicates how the internet has really increased the power of the mixtape as a marketing tool. Like the crowd, I was enthusiastic to hear Us Placers, but the song is kind of lacking without live verses from the other superstars. I couldn't stay mad for too long though $#8212; I got to see another super group, Wu-Tang Clan later that night.

Kate Carosino

And here, the performance I have been waiting for since I last saw the Damnwells last November. When they broke out with their older "Star/Fool" song, I got chills. So good. I had to record it.

After their performance, I snagged frontman Alex Dezen away for 10 minutes for an interview (
listen here). Okay, now that I have seen all three of my top rated Bumbershoot bands - Army of Me, For Years Blue, Damnwells - I should probably quit obsessing over how I discovered them all in a little tiny coffeeshouse in little tiny Spokane last year. I have met a lot of cool people through my Bumbershoot excursions, and I'm pretty sure that each one of them suspects my abnormally constant preoccupation with just how awesome it was that they were all scheduled here and they all must think I'm just psycho or something. But... still, wasn't it amazing? All three of those thrilling performances within a mere 24 hours in one location again?

I feel quite spoiled. If this is an annual celebration then in September 2008, I will highly depend on my expectations for those three to reunite for me once again.

Julia Lipscomb

I am still awestruck that local punk gods in the Blakes agreed to do a spontaneous interview with me right after their set (
listen here). While I was escorting them from the Sound Transit Stage in one corner of the Center and all the way over to the press room in the north, we were stopped frequently by fans as jaded as myself reminding them how much the rocked. It's true. They did rocked the stage, and as I said in my exclusive interview with them here, they were the one and only band to make me shake my groove until I broke a sweat.

Julia Lipscomb

Wu-Tang Clan didn't invent hip-hop, but they've been a serious catalyst in its continued relevance into the 21st century. As far as rap groups go, one could argue that they're the most important of the 1990's. The 1990's are long gone though, and Wu-Tang Clan are no longer the most relevant hip-hop group around. Despite the pain involved, Ol' Dirty Bastard is dead, and the legacy of Wu-Tang exists mostly in records which are more than a decade old. However, the individual performers have not lost any of their fire and recent albums (Ghostface Killah's "Fishcale," being the most notable of those) have brought Wu-Tang back to the prominence they deserve.

Wu-Tang's headlining performance at Bumbershoot continued the path to bringing Wu-Tang back as one of hip-hop's most important current groups. They opened their show with the classic "Wu Tang Clan Aint Nuthing ta F' Wit," a song which is as recognizable to hip-hop fans as "Hey Jude," is to baby boomers. From there Wu-Tang excited the crowd, trading off verses like wildfire and playing legendary song after legendary song.

When Wu-Tang asked the audience for a response, the crowd reacted accordingly. When Wu asked for fists to be pumped, the entire packed ground of Memorial Stadium obliged. When Wu-Tang asked for the crowd to hold their hands in the shape of a "W," the sight looked like a Wu-Tang bat call.

On record, RZA is the undisputed leader of the Wu-Tang Clan. He is the one who brought all the group members together and sparked the fire which they're still burning. Live however, Method Man took the lead, acting as the ambassador between the Wu and their adoring fans. He had to put his host role aside however, for his big performance during the song which has a title bearing his name. During the song the crowd jumped and screamed to the opening and chorus which repeat "M-E-T-H-O-D Man!"

Much of Wu-Tang's performance was a tribute to the fallen soldier: ODB. Wu-Tang paid particular tribute to his legend by playing his solo songs and letting his verses play recorded over songs they rapped live, including his amazing verse on "Da Mystery of Chessboxin.'" At other times, Wu members recited his verses as if they were already folk stories which had been passed from generation to generation, even though he only passed but three years ago.

To close the show Wu-Tang performed the song "Gravel Pit," one of their newer smash hits. It was a bittersweet moment for Wu fans. It was new enough that it allowed listeners to look forward to their upcoming album which drops in October, but also a song which so obviously misses ODB that one realizes Wu-Tang will never be the same without him.

Tristan Pelton

Tokyo Police Club plays unique indie pop about robots taking over the world and first kisses. They are flawless in song structure and every single track is catchy. I would have loved to have watched their whole set, but I had to move along to the Sky Church in order to get my Fleet Foxes fix. This is one of the only downsides to Bumbershoot; overlapping bands. But what can you do!

Emily Gorman

Emily Gorman