So, there’s this thing called the Urban Art Festival that you haven’t heard of and didn’t go to. Which is fine, you didn’t miss much and probably wouldn’t have made the drive to Tacoma anyway. It was sort of Urban, sort of Art, barely Festival. There was one (one!) food vendor selling exclusively barbecued pork sandwiches.

Tacoma has a chronic problem with supporting its arts community, specifically music. People just don’t come out for shows; I could probably come up with a failed Tacoma venue for every letter of the alphabet. Even despite the terrible execution, though, the Urban Art Festival is a nice idea. The kids had a good time, even rocked out a little, and the city bonded under umbrellas and tarps. You can say all you want about how sketchy and gritty and tacky Tacoma is and I’ll probably agree with you, but the city’s got good intentions and a tender little heart.

I spent most of my afternoon at the UrbanXchange stage--basically a tent on the sidewalk--trying to revive my camera from a near-drowning (which proved to be in vain, explaining my lack of photos of the event). At the other end of the park, the "Totem Stage" was hosting "bigger" acts, actually just a string of predominantly funk/reggae/DJ acts, with one going so far as to cover the National Anthem and actually segue into Radiohead's "National Anthem"... on saxophone... OH THE HUMANITY.

I missed the first band, but showed up in time for Allan Boothe, who actually blew me away with his cozy melodies and capricious lyrics. Despite utilizing the pantheon of trademark indie instruments (guitar, banjo, keyboards, shaker, tambourine, baby blue Angel glockespiel), his strange yet tender compositions were refreshing and actually kept the crowd distracted from the terrible weather for a full hour. Sound-Off Semifinalists Don't Tell Sophie win the morale-boosting award for playing amidst the most torrential of downpours, with the crowd huddling under the tent between amps and monitors.

The last act was Port Townsend trio Captain Incognito, a pretty good band with a terrible name. Unfortunately the crowd was seriously dwindling by then, but they played well despite the lack of audience participation. They reminded me a lot of a younger, happier, Interpol-Franz Ferdinand fusion. Catchy as hell. But not enough to save the UAF.

At the last chord the crowd fled the scene, except for those still grazing in the beer corral, and the festival was pretty much over. I still don't really know how I feel about Sunday afternoon. It probably built community or something. Better than sitting at home and watching "Friends" reruns.