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