Brendan was right, Seattle Center is pretty useless. But for those few days a year when Bumbershoot happens, the Center doesn’t seem like an archaic monument to “the future” anymore. However briefly, it’s actually bustling - alive with sounds and smells and people. It’s actually the center of something.

photo by Justin Renney

Dude, Kings of Leon cut off all their hair and beards. I wonder if they were stoked to have their name bigger than Fergie’s on the Seattle Center marquee, and to be playing on Leon H. Brigham field. They breezed through a set of classic, southern infused rock, with nothing particularly notable to mention, but nothing negative either. The girl standing behind me noticed that they were missing little to no notes, and thus kept the band’s rock meter in the green.

Singer Caleb Followill said about twenty minutes in to the set, “ You guys are cool. Feel free to sing along if you know the words, (under his breath) but I doubt you do…” They busted into their first single, “Molly’s Chambers,” which quite a few people actually did know the lyrics to. The mom next to me was dancing.

Both of the comedy shows I saw were opened by Doug Benson, best known from Best Week Ever and his recent expulsion from Last Comic Standing. His first set was full of pot humor, including a very funny rant on how the best stoner food – McGriddles – are only available until 10:30, making them impossible for stoners to acquire. His second set was dirtier, with musings on the burning satisfaction of masturbating with Purell.

Fred Armison from SNL didn’t even really tell a joke for his short set, he just rambled incoherently about random newspaper headlines from that day. He came out later as experimental drummer Jens Hannemann, with a clear green drum set comprised of 3 kick drums, 11 (or more) toms, 11 cymbals, and a giant gong. He played a composition to a video of rainforest and insect shots being projected above him. I was later informed by my friend John that Armison was the drummer of rock group Trenchmouth in the 90s. He seemed somewhat proficient on the giant kit. It was mildly funny. When he took questions from the audience and demanded that the people walk up onto the stage to ask him it was funnier.

There were several great moments in Brent Weinbach’s set, a small, stern-faced man who doubled-fisted the mic while delivering and had one of the longest tongues I have ever seen. My favorite joke was his response to people accusing him of being “too creepy” on stage, in which he portrayed perhaps the grossest hunched-over sociopath imaginable. A key line: “You know what the problem with poo-poo is? God made it too delicious.”

Eugene Mirman was my favorite comic of the day. He repeated a few jokes from his album, but mostly came with fresh material and presented a great homemade video interviewing people from Massachusetts. Here’s a small clip of his set:

Everyone in Stella canceled except Michael Ian Black, so he performed solo with Todd Barry as his guest opener. Barry’s deadpan, monotone comedy is always funny to me, but I thought his set wasn’t as good as the one I caught at last year’s Bumbershoot. Nonetheless, I was chuckling through the whole thing. “I’m on the Myspace, why not? I’m only 43. You learn a lot from looking at those profiles. For example, I never knew that Donnie Darko was the best movie ever.”

Michael Ian Black said he thought his rendering on “the Strangler’s” Bumbershoot guide made him look like Sylvester Stallone with Down Syndrome. He started talking about bad PR, and someone yelled out “Hitler had bad PR,” which sidetracked Black into a slew of Nazi jokes. He particularly liked how the name “Nazi” combined the great flavor of nachos with the fun and strategy of Yahtzee!. Many of his jokes were self deprecating and emasculating, like how he wears long sleeve shirts and corduroy pants to the beach because he looks like a “13 year old Mexican transvestite” with his clothes off. In a bit about how jamming his finger inevitably sends him into an incoherent swearing fit, he made sure to clarify the jumbled words he screamed rolling on the ground: “For those of you transcribing this, I said, ‘Your cunt is a yogurt spoon.’”

Andrew Bird has seriously mastered the loop pedal, making his three piece sound as full as a stage full of musicians. Bird starts out his songs building lines of violin, plucked as well as bowed, guitar, glockenspiel, and amazing whistling to top it off. In most of his songs, after he gets an intricately layered loop he cuts it off to start a new section, then always manages to tastefully bring it back later in the song only to add more layers to it. His set was wonderful - a great surprise as, somehow, he’d managed to stay under my radar until now.

Devendra Banhart’s six piece band was also fantastic, playing a lot of new songs from their unreleased album Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon. The new material had several long, smooth jams that moved Banhart’s trademark “freak” folk into an excellent juxtaposition with classic 60s stoner sessions, elements of reggae, and the incorporation of multi-part backing vocals. Live, Banhart’s low, vibrato soaked vocals sounded like a strange mix of Elvis and Jim Morrison, and were especially fitting over the jangly guitars of the new song “Lover.” (Listening to the album version of the song now I wouldn’t make this comparison at all, but live his voice seemed deeper and more soulful.)

I knew there was probably a real Stranger photographer backstage taking quality pictures, but I wanted to get up on the side of the stage and snap a few myself. As I stood in line waiting to get onstage, a “professional” photographer looked over at me and asked, “Are you taking pictures up there?” “Uh, yeah,” I replied. “Where’s your camera!?!” She was referring to the pitiful, five year old Canon Powershot I was holding. “Oh no,” I started, “ This camera has 3.2 Megapixels!” She didn’t pick up on my sarcasm. “My camera has like 10.” “Well my camera drains the battery in like a half an hour if you leave it in there, even after you turn it off.” She stared at me blankly. I got up on the side of the stage and took some shitty pictures with my shitty camera.

Backstage, two of the Trucks were the only people dancing. Kristen and Faith were glad to report that they opened that stage earlier in the day to an already packed, energetic crowd. The Trucks, as was reinforced to me at Total Fest last month, are really into having a good time. They keep it very real.

Banhart pulled one of the funniest stunts I’ve seen onstage, asking the crowd, “Has anyone written a song recently that they’d like to play?” A few people raised their hands, and Banhart pulled a kid from the front and handed him his guitar. The drummer came out to join him, and the random kid belted out a grungish tune with real conviction. He stopped himself after a minute or so, well aware that, however funny it was, everyone was there to see Banhart and not him.

After that stunt, Banhart put his guitar away and the band played a swaggering version of Long Haired Child. Without the axe to hold him down, Banhart could wow the crowd with his flamboyant, exaggerated sway dancing. I’m not quite sure how to describe his moves - part interpretive dance, part Bollywood perhaps - but by the end of the set I found myself saying more than once, “ I really like the way Devendra Banhart dances.” He proved to be an enigmatic and thoroughly entertaining front man - more so than what I had expected going into the show.

People bitched about this year’s lineup sucking, and I guess across the three days it kind of did. But everyone I went with on Sunday ended the night ecstatic about everything we had seen, happily remarking that there wasn’t a single thing we went to that wasn’t good. For the second year in a row, days of sparse and separated good music acts were saved by a great comedy lineup - as long as you resigned yourself to the fact that you had to get in line an hour ahead of time to see any of the funny stuff.