Welcome to Bumbershoot!
Well, it’s been a long week of recovering from “festival flu” after just two days at Bumbershoot 2010; it was so bad that we couldn’t get out of bed Monday morning to catch the last day of the festival. We did, however, make it to the second day and snapped some good photos from the Sunday sets.
Our first stop for the day was Brian Auger’s Oblivion Express. Active since the 60’s as a session player for Rod Stewart, Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, and a number of other acts, Brian Auger is a big name among Hammond Organ enthusiasts and the jazz-rock scene. His long-running band, Brian Auger’s Oblivion Express, has been active off and on since at least 1970. In the last decade or so the band has grown to include his son, Karma Auger, on drums and his daughter, Savannah Auger, as the lead vocalist (as well as Derek Frank on Bass).
Check out this video (from 2005, not at Bumbershoot), for a good handle on the band, and some photos below:
Brian Auger’s Oblivion Express – “Truth”
Savannah Auger of Brian Auger’s Oblivion Express
Brian Auger’s Oblivion Express
We made our way over to the Broad Street Stage for Ra Ra Riot, which sufficiently scratched our “indie music” itch for a couple of hours:
Ra Ra Riot
Ra Ra Riot
Ra Ra Riot
Ra Ra Riot
Our next stop was getting into line for Patton Oswalt & Friends. While we waited in line we were joined by this guy with Spiderman face paint:
Spiderman Face Paint
Patton was joined by fellow comedians Chris Hardwick of Nerdist.com, Eddie Pepitone, and Nick Thune, all good comedians, but I’d highly recommend Nick Thune; he’s like Mitch Hedberg, except he plays a guitar and looks more like a hipster than a member of Nirvana.
Here’s a clip from Patton Oswalt’s set:
We had time to stop at Billy Bragg for a couple of photos and a rousing rendition of Bob Marley’s “One Love”, replacing the line of “let’s get together and feel alright” with Bragg’s version, “Let’s drop the debt and it will be alright,” in reference to the enormous debt of African countries to the developed world. Followed by a lengthy speech about President Obama and Bragg’s political efforts in the U.K., it was definitely the most political I’ve ever seen an artist become during a performance. That said, most performers don’t have either the brains or the cojones to take a stand on any issue nowadays, so it gave me a much better opinion of Bragg as a whole.
I didn’t get many good photos from our spot in the crowd, but someone grabbed a YouTube video of Way Over Yonder In A Minor Key” down below, a favorite of mine from Bragg’s “Mermaid Avenue” collaboration with Wilco.
Billy Bragg
Billy Bragg – “Way Over Yonder In A Minor Key”
Our last and most anticipated stop of the day was The Dandy Warhols. We walked up a few minutes late after spending more time than we expected at Billy Bragg. I’ve been a fan of the band’s recordings for a long time but I’ve never seen them live or heard a live show before, and I was surprised by how much of a 90’s alternative vibe I got from the band (not in a bad way, the band just does not play the same style of music in a live setting that you’d hear on their last couple albums). Nevertheless, the concert was great – the band was into the show and the crowd was with them the whole way. They spread out the songs among the entire discography, and even threw in a rendition of “Push It” by Salt n Pepa in the middle of “Horse Pills.” All in all, two thumbs up, it was a great way to end the night. Scroll down past the photos for a YouTube of “We Used To Be Friends”
The Dandy Warhols
The Dandy Warhols
The Dandy Warhols
The Dandy Warhols
The Dandy Warhols – “We Used To Friends”
