_{The Lashes by Morgan Keuler}

So much for live blogging at Bumbershoot, the internet in the press room was out all day so I couldn’t do any periodic check-ins for Line Out. Sorry.

However! I took good notes. In my head. Because writing things down at a rock show makes me feel like a goober.

The first thing I did Saturday was head over to the Intiman Theater to see Eugene Mirman, Fred Armisen, and some other funny guys tell jokes. The lines at the comedy stages can be out of control long, but if you can get in, it’s totally worth it. After the show, I was lucky enough to do a video interview with Mr. Mirman, so look for that to go up in the next couple days.

The Lashes show at the Sound Transit stage was absolutely packed. It was the band’s first performance since guitarist Eric Howk suffered a paralyzing fall earlier this year. The band sounded great—the huge clamor of kids in front danced, cheered, and sang along, and Howk took every guitar solo and nailed it like we all knew he could. At one point, everyone waved their fingers in the air—metal guitar solo style—as he wailed. He had the biggest grin on his face. I even saw a few teary eyes when the band first took the stage—fans were worried the Lashes wouldn’t be able to survive the tragedy, and they clearly proved them all wrong.

The band also announced that they’ve been quietly recording new material over the past couple months, and singer Ben Lashes said they have one half of a new record done, and they plan on releasing it in the next two months. The new songs were more of the same from the Lashes—crunchy and bright power pop.

Welcome back, Lashes.

Menomeno played after them and they had a 20+ piece choir signing with them. I can’t say how awesome it was because those kinds of words haven’t been invented yet.

As if the day hadn’t already supplied it’s share of “Holy fuck, this is the best Bumbershoot ever” moments, the evening came to it’s surreal climax when the Schoolyard Heroes played the Mainstage—Memorial Stadium.

(3/4 of the band backstage minutes before the show.)

+44 canceled, so the Heroes were asked to fill in last minute, and holy shit did they do a fantastic job. I’ve watched this band grow up. I remember when Ryann Donnelly would wear jeans and an Interpol t-shirt on stage, and the boys weren’t wearing matching black outfits. They were a young monster-inspired punk rock band back then, playing to fifty people maybe, and now they’re a force to be reckoned with. Hypnotizing and mesmerizing thousands—it was the biggest show the band ever played.

The crowd in front was so big there were times it had three separate mosh pits going. Kids were constantly being plucked out by security for crowd surfing or the threat of suffocation from all the pushing,

After the show Donnelly told me that she got to do everything she ever wanted to do on that stage. If a moment like that never happened again in the band’s career, she’d be content, knowing she lived it up as much as possible—she climbed the scaffolding, she sat on the edge, dangled her feet, and serenaded thousands, and she even jumped down over the edge, into the photo pit, and then into the crowd.

To top it all off, when Donnelly went over the edge of the stage, a friend works with the band who was backstage, went over to make sure she was going to be okay. He ended up breaking his arm, though. Sigh. I guess if you’re gonna break something, you might as well do it by jumping off the mainstage at Bumbershoot, right? I’m a little jealous, now that I think about it.

I finished the day at the EMP Sky Church watching the Grand Archives. My feet hurt, my eyelids were starting to droop, and since the Grand Archives’ music is the kind of music sparkling, meloncholy music I’d listen to while falling asleep after an emotionally draining day, my body had to fight really hard to not to collapse to the floor and drift into sleep right there. I regretably left about half-way through. There were still two days left, after all, I had to save my energy.