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Bumbershoot 2008: Sunday
Review by Elena Goukassian
Posted September 3, 2008
I had wanted to go to Bumbershoot since I
was fourteen years old, but, for some reason, I never
happened to be in town at the time, I had no money, or
the bands didn’t appeal to me that much. Now, eight
years later, I am glad to say I finally made it.
A friend and I started off the day with Apocalypse in
Coney Island: A Bumberlesque Cabaret, featuring a
hilarious MC with phocomelia (flipper-like arms), an
amazing trapeze duo, and a random audience-member taught
to twirl pasties onstage by one of the professionals. It
was all very enjoyable, with the trapeze artists the Wau
Wau sisters as the indisputable highlight. They not only
twisted, turned, and balanced every which
way--strategically removing clothes here and there, of
course-- but they managed to do it all as ridiculously
in character as possible, first as churchgoing
schoolgirls (in honor of the lord’s day), and then as
‘80s headbangers.
Next, we found ourselves at Your Little Hoodrat Friends:
Joshua Furst, Jeff Parker, with Leslie Wood. The two
authors read from their books, with Leslie Wood playing
a song or two in-between. Jeff Parker was my favorite.
His book, Overman, recounts the story of a
20-something who works crappy jobs, is the most
unpopular member of a terrible band, and gets into
funny-but-horrible drunken situations he doesn’t
remember the next day. The writing style is hilarious,
as are the ridiculous-yet-completely-plausible
situations the main character gets himself into.
We left the reading a little bit early in order to catch
Australia’s Strange Fruit, a group of two men in suits
and top hats and two women wearing long evening dresses,
each perched atop a flexible pole fifteen feet high and
swinging back and forth and side to side. It was
beautiful and original. The performers would all
interact with each other kind of like mimes while
swinging to every kind of music, from opera to a gypsy
band.
The day ended with a performance by the Black
Keys, the very reason I had bought the festival ticket
in the first place. The drum and guitar bluesy
rock-and-roll duo from Ohio played a good variety of old
and new songs one after the other, and I left the
stadium very pleased with their technique and
more-music-less-chit-chat attitude.
All in all, I really enjoyed spending Sunday at
Bumbershoot. There were a lot more interesting and
imaginative things to see and hear than I had expected,
making it well worth the $40 ticket.
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